There Are No Girls on the Internet - Arrested for making TikToks？ Yup. It happened to Coco Briscoe

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00:01:51.760 How do you think it came that you were arrested for something that seems so patently incongruous with our constitutional rights to free speech?

00:02:00.200 Well, I'll tell you, corrupt police.

00:02:04.020 Corrupt police trying to protect one of their buddy's girlfriends.

00:02:07.660 And I think that they thought it would just scare me.

00:02:13.380 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:23.500 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:28.960 People talk a lot about threats to free speech without mentioning the reality that the people who are most likely to face consequences for the things they say online are people who are already marginalized.

00:02:40.200 And Coco Briscoe, a former comedian living in Arlington, Virginia, who was arrested last year for making TikToks, is a great example of what I mean.

00:02:48.060 Hi, I'm Coco Briscoe, and I'm a TikToker.

00:02:51.360 The story of Coco's arrest starts out in a pretty unlikely place, the search for love.

00:02:57.320 Coco was new to the city and was going on a lot of dates.

00:03:00.380 So she started chronicling them in a TikTok series called Dating in D.C.

00:03:04.600 I live in D.C. I live in Columbia Heights.

00:03:07.300 I'm not single now, but when I was single, I remember what a, I don't know, particular

00:03:14.320 place dating in DC is.

00:03:16.200 And so I really appreciated your content because I was like, oh yeah, dating in DC can be kind

00:03:21.000 of a hellscape.

00:03:22.240 And so watching your content, I really felt for you, I mean, not all of your dates were

00:03:27.100 bad, but I really felt like what it was like to be dating and be like, oh God, am I ever

00:03:30.800 going to find the one?

00:03:32.100 So I always appreciated your content.

00:03:33.720 Thank you so much.

00:03:34.680 So I was watching your saga, and I know that you've probably gotten quite good at describing what happened in 60 seconds, but you were, you know, someone who just made these lighthearted TikToks about your dating life, finding love in D.C., and that actually resulted in you being arrested for making TikToks.

00:03:53.760 Can you tell us what happened?

00:03:55.480 Yes.

00:03:56.020 So you're right.

00:03:57.120 My series was just about dating.

00:03:59.400 It was very lighthearted.

00:04:00.380 It was about online dating and going on my dates and just about my dating adventures.

00:04:05.680 I used to be a stand-up comedian.

00:04:07.220 And so when I talk about my dates, I do have a sense of humor behind it.

00:04:10.940 I don't take dating super seriously, although I am truly looking for a relationship.

00:04:15.400 I'm looking for love.

00:04:16.960 So I started doing it with no expectation that anyone was even going to watch it.

00:04:20.600 I thought it was just going to be my friends and family and maybe some random people on

00:04:23.660 the internet.

00:04:24.800 And it grew pretty quickly, but it was really fun in the beginning because I felt like I

00:04:29.320 had kind of like a cult following. Like it was like a very specific type of person. And I felt

00:04:34.800 that my audience really related to me. I felt like they were close in my age range. I felt like they

00:04:40.780 understood the struggle. And so it felt like just talking to my friends. I was just coming on,

00:04:46.680 talking to my friends about my dating life. And so as you know, you said you did quite a bit of

00:04:51.800 dating before you got into your relationships. The hell on earth it can be. And it gets expensive.

00:04:57.980 You know, I mean, a lot of times men are gentlemen and offer to pay, but also there's a lot involved in, you know, buying new outfits or Ubering to and from a different neighborhood, D.C. and the surrounding areas.

00:05:11.920 It's a big area.

00:05:13.540 So I was spending a lot of money on cab fare and stuff.

00:05:16.300 So I decided to start going to local places.

00:05:18.600 I also thought it would be a good opportunity to support local businesses in my neighborhood, as well as keep me safe because dating can be sketchy.

00:05:27.360 luckily I hadn't had any super sketchy dating experiences, but it could happen. And so I thought

00:05:35.660 if I go to local places, then they'll recognize me and they'll know what I'm doing, that I'm on

00:05:41.000 a date. They'll see me going on dates. And so if anything weird ever happened, this is just a

00:05:45.280 familiar place to me. And it was all great. That was working out really great because I was going

00:05:50.760 to places walking distance from my house. And all of a sudden things started getting very weird in

00:05:56.460 my neighborhood. I am new to this area. I didn't know many people. No one had really befriended me

00:06:03.460 locally. But all of a sudden, kind of slowly people started to know who I was. Like knowing

00:06:10.640 my name and I was feeling like I was getting stared at a lot. I was feeling like a lot of

00:06:15.440 people were showing up. The same groups of people were showing up everywhere that I was. And I just

00:06:20.060 thought it was a coincidence. It was weird. But I thought, you know, this is kind of, I'm on

00:06:25.260 Columbia Pike in Arlington. There's four bars. The neighborhood people go to the same four bars.

00:06:30.760 Not that weird. Now, people like me loved following the ups and downs of Coco's dating

00:06:35.580 journeys on TikTok. But some people that she encountered in real life didn't have that same

00:06:40.560 response. Some of them are actually really hostile. Basically, their response was, who does

00:06:45.920 she think she is? Slowly, people started saying things to me. If someone introduced me to someone,

00:06:52.100 And they were like, I know who you are, Coco.

00:06:53.740 I've seen your TikTok.

00:06:55.140 And I was like, oh, but it was never in a friendly way.

00:06:58.260 It was always in a like, yeah, I've seen your TikTok.

00:07:00.700 I'm like, why are these people watching my TikTok?

00:07:02.520 My TikTok wasn't that popular at the time.

00:07:05.720 It's not like everyone watches my TikTok.

00:07:08.500 Like I said, I had kind of a cult following.

00:07:10.680 And so it just kind of slowly got weirder and weirder and weirder.

00:07:13.620 And then finally, someone told me about this group chat that was going on

00:07:20.460 that has about 50 people in my neighborhood, who all were kind of local yokel, like this is their

00:07:26.640 territory, I think was their feeling. And who's this girl coming from California, doing this

00:07:32.480 TikTok going on all these dates, like it was a very much the energy was who the hell does she 1.00

00:07:37.660 think she is? Like, that's the kind of energy I was getting from these people. And when I was told

00:07:43.980 about the group chat, I originally thought it was just a bunch of people watching my TikToks and

00:07:47.380 making fun of it. Like, look at this stupid girl. She goes on a lot of dates. Like what a loser. 1.00

00:07:51.900 And I didn't really care. I thought it was really lame and uncool. Um, but then it got scary because 0.99

00:07:58.900 I realized that some of the employees of these bars that I was going to were letting this group

00:08:03.540 chat know every time that I was in the bar. Coco's in here guys. Um, and it was a variation of things

00:08:10.220 that were being said. What a stupid whore. Let's vanquish her from Columbia Pike. I'm going to end 1.00

00:08:17.440 her who chooses violence tonight. Let's let, and they just, they kept mentioning the word violence. 0.85

00:08:22.840 And I get that that's a figure of speech, right? Like I choose violence, but the way they were

00:08:27.380 speaking about me, the way they were speaking about my body, the way that the language behind

00:08:33.160 it. And there was so much I didn't share on Tik TOK. I have multiple screenshots, lots of

00:08:36.940 conversations between these people, which in a way I wish I hadn't ever found out about it,

00:08:41.620 but I'm glad I did because I think if this behavior had continued, it could have gotten

00:08:45.940 very dangerous. I think that kind of group gang mentality of we all have this common enemy bond

00:08:55.640 can really lead to dangerous situations, especially for women. 0.92

00:09:00.600 Finding out that there was a group of people from her neighborhood in a group chat

00:09:03.880 saying these kinds of things about her understandably made Coco feel unsafe.

00:09:08.440 But then, the conversation turned to tracking her specific whereabouts.

00:09:13.260 One day, a bartender at one of the bars she frequented for dates

00:09:16.860 took a video of Coco riding her bike down the street and posted it in the group chat.

00:09:22.080 Coco had had enough.

00:09:24.320 I was shocked when I saw that one of the bartenders had taken a video of me

00:09:29.820 riding my bike down the street.

00:09:31.360 I had walked into the bar. I was looking for a friend of mine. I just glanced in. I was like,

00:09:36.460 oh, my friend's not in here. I got on my bicycle and I was on my way. I was riding home. It was

00:09:41.160 late at night. And she had taken this video and said a bunch of really disgusting things

00:09:46.540 to these people that call me disgusting names. And which, by the way, I do not know these people.

00:09:51.820 I have no personal relationship with any of these people. And I was horrified. And so I went to the

00:09:57.120 bar owner. I felt like I had a decent relationship with him. He'd always been pretty nice to me. And

00:10:02.920 I had never had any type of, there was never a situation with any of these people or any of

00:10:07.820 these places where there was any type of friction. I was just a paying customer going on my dates,

00:10:13.100 having a drink and some food and leaving. That was the entire thing. And when I went to the bar

00:10:17.720 owner, I was like, Oh, he's going to be horrified that his employee did this because I would,

00:10:21.840 I would be like, this person is fired. This is unacceptable. And instead of saying, I'm so sorry

00:10:27.460 that happened to you, Coco. We do not condone this kind of behavior. You've been a great customer.

00:10:33.300 I will handle this. He screamed in my face and said, if you don't feel safe in my bar,

00:10:37.480 then you never have to come back. And I was shocked that that was his reaction.

00:10:43.100 After being made aware of the kinds of conversations happening about her,

00:10:46.280 Coco filed a police report, and she was actually the first person in the situation to contact law

00:10:50.740 enforcement. But she says it didn't really go anywhere. The police basically blew her off.

00:10:56.000 And after getting such a hostile reaction from the bar manager, she felt like she didn't have

00:11:00.420 a ton of options. So she took to TikTok and used her platform, which had once been about a

00:11:05.380 lighthearted chronicling of her dates, to talk about what she was experiencing.

00:11:10.440 So I took to social media and I said, this really crazy stuff is going on in my neighborhood

00:11:16.980 and I don't know what to do about it. I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't say the name

00:11:21.040 of the bars. I didn't say the name of any of these people other than a first name because it was in

00:11:25.140 the screenshot from the chat. Well, after I made the very first video saying this bartender took

00:11:32.040 a video of me leaving on my way home at night and sent it to a bunch of people that talk about

00:11:36.060 violence against me and call me names and are bullies and stalkers in my opinion because they

00:11:43.240 follow me around. I was like, this is what's happening and I don't know what to do. This

00:11:48.560 woman filed a protective order against me, preventing me from making TikToks, talking 1.00

00:11:55.420 about the situation, even though I didn't even know the woman's last name. I didn't know anything

00:11:59.160 about her and I didn't say the name of the bar. Four police officers show up at my house

00:12:03.860 with a protective order at 4 a.m. I'm a single woman. I live alone. You need four cops with a

00:12:12.140 protective order and 4am 4am and this is an epo this isn't just like oh i've been harassing someone

00:12:19.620 for a long period of time this is an emergency protective order meant to protect people from

00:12:23.940 immediate danger so and i'm just on there making a tiktok going this is creepy this creepy thing

00:12:31.280 happened and this woman felt the need to do what she did and and i truly don't believe it's because

00:12:37.380 she was afraid. I truly believe it's because, and I have screenshots from her saying, ha, ha, ha,

00:12:44.940 Coco's going to get it. I have a police officer boyfriend. I love this for her bragging about it,

00:12:51.480 bragging about how they were going to end me and they were going to. So I was like, wow, this is,

00:12:57.880 this is really messed up. Like really the Arlington police are going to show up at my

00:13:02.700 house and do this. Like, this is ludicrous. And I was like, wait till TikTok hears about this. 0.84

00:13:07.380 And, and I'd like to say I had already filed a police report about these people and I didn't

00:13:12.720 think anything was going to come of it. And it wasn't necessarily to even get anyone in trouble.

00:13:16.360 It was just like, Hey, Arlington police, this group of weirdos is doing this to me. So in case

00:13:22.100 someone decides to unalive me, here's what's going on. And here's the people involved in this.

00:13:28.200 And they didn't take it seriously. They didn't investigate. They in fact, never returned my

00:13:32.460 phone calls. So the Arlington PD not only didn't care that 50 people had been harassing me and

00:13:38.640 talking about violence against me, didn't give a shit, didn't call me back, but they feel the need 0.96

00:13:43.980 to issue a protective order and show up at my house to prevent me from speaking out about 0.99

00:13:48.420 people that are doing something really disgusting to me. I was like, wow. And I truly thought it was

00:13:54.800 a joke. I was like, oh my God, once I post this on TikTok, these people are going to leave me the

00:13:59.980 hell alone because the whole world is going to go, what? You can't do that. And of course,

00:14:05.980 TikTok did have the reaction. They're like, what? And then there's a whole slew of women saying,

00:14:11.340 I couldn't get a protective order against a man that was physically abusing me for months,

00:14:16.660 years. And it was just breaking my heart. I was like, this is such a complete abuse

00:14:21.080 of the system. It's disgusting. Let's take a quick break. 0.72

00:14:29.980 We'll be right back.

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00:16:32.060 When I was 14 years old,

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00:16:37.880 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring

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00:17:37.180 And we're back.

00:17:39.500 Now, up until this point,

00:17:40.840 Coco had not publicly said the names

00:17:42.620 of any of the bars involved.

00:17:44.300 But after being served with a protective order

00:17:46.680 filed by the bartender who took the video

00:17:49.220 of her riding her bike down the street, 1.00

00:17:50.740 Barring her from talking about the situation on social media, Coco said fuck it and made 0.98

00:17:55.900 a TikTok naming the bars. 1.00

00:17:59.680 Open up, police! 0.55

00:18:01.580 That's when the police showed up at her door again. 1.00

00:18:04.360 This time to put her in handcuffs and take her to jail for violating the protective order.

00:18:10.120 So after that, I was like, so these people are not only going to continue to harass me,

00:18:17.220 but the owners of the bars are going to do nothing.

00:18:19.080 The police are going to do nothing.

00:18:20.740 the police are going to harass me. Well, I'm telling where these bars are because if this

00:18:25.400 is what they do to women, people need to avoid these places. So I said the name of the bars.

00:18:30.820 Then I got another protective order. Again, police show up at my house. I think it was like

00:18:36.200 five in the morning this time, but it was only two cops, but they come banging on my door.

00:18:40.680 That cop knock. Yeah, just banging. It's the police. Oh, really? And I'm just sitting in

00:18:45.280 my freaking bathrobe like what are you kidding and i i videoed the entire thing i opened the door 0.83

00:18:52.460 first of all i couldn't see through like when i looked through the people police don't stand where 0.95

00:18:56.720 you can see them these people were standing on opposite sides of the door i was like i cannot

00:19:01.120 see you how do i know this is the police how do i know this could be one of these creepy people

00:19:06.640 from the group chat coming to you know and alive me so i i put on my camera and i videoed the

00:19:12.600 entire thing. And I was like, what did I do? Like, you're gonna have to tell me what I did to

00:19:19.180 deserve a protective order. They were like, we don't know. We don't know. We're just here to

00:19:22.740 serve it. Which is a lie, because that officer actually was the one who was monitoring my

00:19:30.160 TikToks. She was with the woman to get her the second restraining order, who by the way, this

00:19:35.420 woman's boyfriend is an Arlington police officer. So these are his buddies doing his dirty work for

00:19:41.300 him and i was just like this is ridiculous i was like this you can't do this to me this is against

00:19:46.980 my first amendment rights i can talk about whatever i want i have done nothing wrong and i was like

00:19:52.460 i don't know wait around because i'm about to tiktok this and i was like you know are they

00:19:59.080 gonna arrest me like i had this like 50 50 like i mean they could because technically i'm violating

00:20:04.780 this thing um but i was like really are they gonna are the arlington police gonna sit there

00:20:10.340 and watch everything I do and they sure did and they came back and arrested me and uh they sent

00:20:16.540 five police to arrest a tiktoker five cops so you know a number of 11 total police that had to deal

00:20:25.300 with me for just making tiktoks and I'm like we have too many cops in Arlington so I'm like you

00:20:32.600 feel the need to harass me this much then we gotta we gotta do something about this y'all need to be

00:20:39.260 defunded. I don't know. But I'm like, do not make me the criminal when you are not doing anything

00:20:45.340 about the real people who are harassing women. Um, anyway, that's a very long way. I don't know

00:20:53.280 if you're expecting all of that. But that's basically the gist. And there's so many little

00:20:58.040 nuances. Like so there's so many like little side stories of people in this group who did approach

00:21:04.140 me in person and scream in my face and threaten me. Their friends have sent me tons of DMs and

00:21:11.280 created fake accounts to harass me. I mean, it's nonstop around the clock. And these people were

00:21:18.460 pushing really hard to have me prosecuted for violating these protective orders, which in my

00:21:24.000 first court hearing, the judge said he was just like, so confused. He's like, how did these even

00:21:31.960 get issue you cannot get an emergency protective order unless you're in danger I knew this which

00:21:39.880 is why in my moment of you know about to go to sleep had wine all night going come arrest me

00:21:45.960 like I don't get like a maniac and I know half a million people saw that and were like

00:21:51.120 this girl is insane I was insane in that moment I was like I cannot do this with these people

00:21:57.860 like how many times are you going to send cops to my house in the middle of the night early in

00:22:01.680 morning to do this. Like, no, I felt like I was losing my mind, and I probably was.

00:22:09.440 Coco was arrested for violating a protective order, barring her from speaking about her

00:22:13.400 experiences with the staff at two Virginia bars. But is an order saying that you can't talk about

00:22:18.540 someone on social media constitutional? In an article about Coco's case, The Washington Post

00:22:23.460 spoke to Eugene Volokh, a legal scholar at UCLA, who said, an order that says stop talking about

00:22:29.640 this person is unconstitutional, no matter who you are. Yet, Volokh, who has been tracking these

00:22:35.760 kinds of orders, says he has identified more than 200 of them. The Post also spoke to Vera

00:22:41.540 Idleham, a staff attorney with the ACLU, who said while speech to someone might, in certain

00:22:47.720 circumstances, properly be deemed as harassment if it is unwanted, the same does not hold true

00:22:54.140 for speech about someone, even if it's unwanted. Because think about it, anyone from racist police

00:22:59.840 to corrupt elected officials could use that to stifle legitimate criticism about them.

00:23:04.860 One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you was exactly that part of the story, right?

00:23:08.940 I should say I'm no lawyer, I'm no legal expert, but from all the legal experts that I've heard

00:23:13.820 from, including the one in the Washington Post article about your situation, unless somebody is

00:23:18.620 threatening violence or knowingly spreading false information, you cannot tell them that they can't

00:23:24.740 make social media content about a specific person, right? So the fact that you were arrested for

00:23:29.600 making TikToks that did not include violent threats or knowingly false information seems

00:23:37.340 to be unconstitutional. And that Washington Post piece cites an ACLU attorney and a UCLA legal

00:23:42.600 scholar that say that. And it seems like the courts agreed. First of all, A, how are you not

00:23:47.980 the poster child for the First Amendment and free speech online. And second, how do you think it

00:23:53.760 came that you were arrested for something that seems so patently incongruous with our constitutional

00:24:00.000 rights to free speech? Well, I'll tell you, corrupt police. Corrupt police trying to protect 0.88

00:24:08.220 one of their buddy's girlfriends. And I think that they thought it would just scare me. I think that

00:24:13.020 they thought, oh, well, if we show up with this protective order, that'll shut her up. Four cops

00:24:16.740 at 4am. That'll scare the shit out of her. And it didn't because I was like, this is ludicrous. 0.99

00:24:23.240 It did shut me up for three days. I didn't go online. And I was like, Okay, I guess I should

00:24:27.000 obey this because these people are going to do anything they can to have me arrested.

00:24:30.880 But I think the reason I'm not the poster child is because the police really messed up. And I

00:24:37.460 think that the press isn't talking about it because it's a big deal. And I think that there's

00:24:43.180 so much to it that I think they're a little scared. I really do. I mean, Arlington Now,

00:24:49.300 our local paper here in Arlington, three articles about my arrest. The third one was about the

00:24:55.500 restaurant saying, oh, Celtic House wants to move past the controversy. Well, good for them. I don't

00:25:01.420 because I didn't get an apology. These people humiliated me in the press. They wrote press

00:25:06.860 releases saying I'm a liar. The only thing that I couldn't back up is I said that she got my 0.91

00:25:12.180 address from my ID and credit card. And when the restraining order was filed, it said she didn't

00:25:17.700 know the address. I did not. I did not know that because they had my address. But that's the only

00:25:23.000 thing I could figure. She knew my full name. She kept writing about my full name in the group chat.

00:25:28.880 She kept saying, call her this, call her this. This is her legal name. And her friends who were

00:25:34.740 approaching me were saying, we know your full legal name and we've Googled you and we're going 0.61

00:25:38.460 to like we're gonna find out everything about you we're gonna destroy you like it was just so high 0.98

00:25:42.920 school mean girls but the reason i'm not the poster child for this is because everybody wants 0.95

00:25:48.640 me to shut the hell up because this is and you know and me talking about it as openly as i am

00:25:55.760 um probably isn't what they want either but they're not going to shut me up uh you know they 0.57

00:26:01.520 have said well they can bring the case back at any time okay um what did i do wrong i made a

00:26:09.240 tiktok saying somebody filed a restraining order illegally against me like i'm sorry but that

00:26:14.520 doesn't feel like breaking the law to me and the argument that people have made in my comments was

00:26:19.140 well it was in effect when you broke it yeah but how many were going to get filed how many times

00:26:24.740 she filed one in fairfax county she filed one in arlington county because i'm sure fairfax was like

00:26:30.720 uh why are you getting all these EPOs against someone who's done nothing to you I'm sure they

00:26:34.960 wouldn't grant a second one uh I mean the judge has already said now again no basis for this but

00:26:41.140 if I hadn't spoken out about it how many times and I keep saying that over and over I'm just like

00:26:46.760 that will make a person crazy when you know you're not breaking the law and they're using this much

00:26:52.700 you know police resources on you me like I'm like literally the least dangerous person on planet

00:27:00.980 earth like I couldn't fight myself up my way out of a wet paper bag you know like I'm not out here

00:27:05.480 in the streets throwing hands like this is what's happening but these people like what's so

00:27:11.960 interesting about all of it to me is that instead of apologizing to me instead of taking responsibility

00:27:18.080 Cause like, look, it's not every single employee of the bars. Right. So if they just said, wow. Um, so these claims have been made. The girl has the, the woman has the evidence. Uh, we're sorry that happened. We're dealing with it. We're investigating. We're going to make sure it doesn't happen again. That would have been the end of it. But these people are, they're relentless.

00:27:36.980 and so they took to the media originally saying that uh the only reason they did it was to warn

00:27:44.080 people that i was coming or which i'm like uh i have witnesses and everyone in my neighborhood

00:27:50.080 well everybody that like has been around me a good amount they're like we didn't believe one

00:27:55.980 word of what was written in there not one word they're like we know you we all were like that's

00:27:59.780 not coco like there's no way this is true so people who know me know it's not true but um

00:28:05.660 yeah I mean so yeah originally they were saying oh we just did it to warn people bartenders do

00:28:10.740 that yeah bartenders do that if there's like a drunk person coming into a bar that shouldn't

00:28:15.220 be served that that is to keep people safe but that's not the conversation and I have the

00:28:21.160 conversation this conversation is about humiliating me calling me names bullying me there is not one

00:28:27.940 thing concerned about my safety in fact it's all about putting my safety in jeopardy I even have

00:28:33.020 a screenshot from one of the other bartenders from another bar not related to these two places 0.81

00:28:37.480 saying hey guys FYI Coco's in here do not come in here and be dicks so he knew that these people

00:28:46.420 were after me right and so I'm like I have all of this evidence so they just kept like raising that 0.77

00:28:52.120 like just raising the stakes they were like yo it's just we were trying to keep her safe and

00:28:56.500 then it was she's violent and she attacks people and I'm like okay and then they were like the only

00:29:02.900 way she found out about the group chat is because she drugged someone and took their phone and i'm

00:29:07.300 like oh my god i have 10 witnesses to the guy who gave me the screenshots of the group chat there

00:29:14.280 were 10 people there who were my friends because we had been out um together and they pressured him

00:29:21.160 to give me the screenshots we didn't bully him we were like you need to like give her these so she

00:29:26.000 has the evidence because she can't back up her story without it so i'm like but it was just on

00:29:31.120 and on and on. And I'm like, just leave me alone. Good Lord. Anyway. After Coco started speaking up

00:29:40.020 about her experiences at the bars, experiences that she says made her feel unsafe in her own

00:29:45.440 neighborhood, someone created a TikTok account dedicated to calling her a liar. I've seen the

00:29:52.080 way these people are like almost obsessed. Like there's TikTok accounts. Like somebody has made

00:29:58.240 a TikTok account solely dedicated to you. So when we say things like, oh, they seem like they're

00:30:05.380 obsessed with me, that's how I would describe... If somebody spent their time making lots and

00:30:12.600 lots of content just about me and how much they didn't like me, I would feel like they were

00:30:17.920 obsessed with me. And I've actually given this a lot of thought. And it's not a fully fleshed out

00:30:22.680 idea, but I think there is something to this idea that you were not willing to shut up.

00:30:28.240 That you are, like, assertive and confident and, like, are able to be like, no, I am going to advocate for my own safety.

00:30:37.060 And I don't really care if you like it or not.

00:30:38.780 I don't really care if you wanted me to shut up. 0.89

00:30:40.480 I don't really care if it makes me look, if you're going to make me look crazy.

00:30:43.720 I'm going to advocate for my safety.

00:30:45.140 I think there is something about that that makes them even more, like, relentless, right?

00:30:54.380 I think that, like, they really expected you to be scared off or to, like, not say anything.

00:31:00.480 Like, I know in my life, when I've had times where somebody was mistreating me, when I

00:31:05.940 stood up and said no, it made it, like, they were not expecting that.

00:31:10.440 And I think there's something about you that, like, it just gets under their skin that you're

00:31:13.980 confident and assertive and that you're not willing to just, like, lay down and take it

00:31:18.280 and be humiliated.

00:31:19.280 You're, like, not willing to let them do this to you.

00:31:21.040 And I think it makes them that much more angry and that much more like obsessed with you and obsessed with like, I don't know, there's something about the way they talk about you online where it feels like they're obsessed with like taking you down a peg or like, you know, putting you in your place.

00:31:35.440 It feels it feels very like I don't even know the word for it.

00:31:39.320 They seem like they're very interested in like humbling you in this very specific way that I think is very much rooted in like misogyny or like sexism.

00:31:48.420 I can't quite describe it, but do you know what I'm saying?

00:31:51.800 Yes, I do.

00:31:53.140 And that was actually the word I was always using, that these people are completely misogynistic.

00:31:58.720 You know, the things that they have said to my face, like the way that they insult me,

00:32:02.580 it's always about my age.

00:32:04.200 I'm 39.

00:32:05.940 Oh, my God.

00:32:06.760 39. 1.00

00:32:07.160 You may as well crawl into a grave and die. 1.00

00:32:09.180 39. 0.99

00:32:12.340 Dating and single and not be home, taking care of 10 kids and like washing my husband's

00:32:17.700 laundry.

00:32:18.100 like it's like that's the way they talk to me um and several of them have been like we know you're 0.92

00:32:23.080 on tiktok and you're 39 like grow up you're so disgusting like they it's just always about my age

00:32:30.100 um that's like the main thing but yeah the energy is very much like who do you think you are why do

00:32:36.140 you think you can do this and i think my series has always been authentic like i'm not on there

00:32:40.980 being like oh look at me i'm hot shit and i get all these hot guys because i'm so perfect no i go

00:32:46.060 on there and i am talking about guys ghost me and things happen and my love life is not perfect my 0.95

00:32:52.980 life is not perfect i am not perfect i make mistakes on dates i embarrass myself accidentally

00:32:58.420 like so there's no need to knock me down a peg like i'm i feel like i'm already pretty humble

00:33:03.220 embarrassing stories online like i tell my audience when i like almost shit my pants in

00:33:09.940 a target parking lot i'm not on here just acting like i'm little miss perfect because i'm not and

00:33:17.860 so this commitment that these people have to just they're trying to cancel me and i'm like why just

00:33:25.780 stop watching me like i'm not it's not like i'm making a ton of money and they have something

00:33:30.760 to completely be jealous about like i live in a studio apartment in bumfuck arlington virginia

00:33:36.320 i'm dating a bunch of weirdos like there's no reason go click on someone else like i'm not the 0.90

00:33:43.880 one but yeah i mean the dedication to just shutting me up to silencing me to humiliating me

00:33:51.340 um it's just like never ending and they think you know they they called their well actually i don't

00:33:57.760 even want to say what their page is called because i don't want to promote it at all

00:34:00.880 But their, you know, their whole platform is trying to say that I'm endangering people by speaking out about how they treated me.

00:34:09.620 They're like, well, we're getting prank phone calls at our business.

00:34:12.780 Well, good. 0.99

00:34:14.360 I'm fucking glad that people are calling and telling you exactly what they think of you because you're disgusting and you shouldn't be treating your customers this way. 1.00

00:34:24.600 You shouldn't be treating women this way. 1.00

00:34:26.200 So I don't care.

00:34:27.320 But, you know, the woman that has raised the biggest fuss, the one that, you know, filed the protective orders against me, admitted in a court of law that not only have I never threatened her, that none of my followers have ever threatened her, and that she's never had any contact with me at all, whatsoever, ever.

00:34:45.640 other than uh other than once she was taking a video of me in Georgetown she walked past my table

00:34:52.760 and took a video of me and I approached her she was with her police officer boyfriend and I said

00:34:56.640 I just saw you take a video of me please do not share my location with your creepy friends I know

00:35:01.540 what you guys are doing I do not appreciate it and I was like what you're doing is illegal and

00:35:06.820 she looked at her police officer boyfriend really freaked out was like is it is it illegal and he

00:35:11.320 was like I don't know like he just didn't know what to say and my friend who's with me was like

00:35:15.200 well, if it's not illegal, you should at least lose your job for doing that to your customer.

00:35:19.520 And that's all we said. So that's the only time that I have ever spoken to that woman

00:35:24.600 in my entire life. I do not know anything about her. The bottom line is that, you know,

00:35:30.920 for me now, I feel like my mission is to raise awareness about other women who are going through

00:35:36.840 similar things. Like that's been kind of a mission I've been on a little bit. And then also like,

00:35:42.200 you know, shedding some light on this police situation.

00:35:48.140 More after a quick break.

00:35:56.120 Behind every night spent making the kids lunches,

00:35:58.900 there's a lot of suspense.

00:36:00.360 Will they finally eat the veggies?

00:36:01.860 Will the pesto survive the first bite?

00:36:03.680 Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

00:36:07.960 And will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

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00:36:55.900 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:37:01.840 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,

00:37:08.000 pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the

00:37:12.580 same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,

00:37:18.000 the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:37:21.440 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:37:24.880 From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

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00:37:36.000 characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart

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00:37:46.020 you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever

00:37:52.500 you get your podcasts see you between the pages when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held

00:37:59.880 captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:38:06.100 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just

00:38:12.260 remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything. Every week I'm 0.68

00:38:21.400 with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going

00:38:28.400 to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started

00:38:35.080 screaming they are abducted stalked controlled and nearly silenced but these aren't stories

00:38:41.820 about what's taken from them they're stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen

00:38:47.940 to the survivor files with elizabeth smart on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you

00:38:54.460 get your podcasts.

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00:39:24.460 let's get right back into it this entire situation has made coco ask tough questions

00:39:34.700 about policing how police serve or fail to serve the communities they're meant to be protecting

00:39:40.360 you know and this is something i haven't addressed because i i feel like it's a delicate subject and

00:39:46.380 it's a hard thing to talk about you know but um acknowledging the privilege in being able to get

00:39:51.640 arrested and not having like a fear, you know, and I think that's something that did upset some

00:39:57.640 people like, look, she's laughing and being like, ha ha, come arrest me. And in the moment,

00:40:01.260 I didn't have to think about what this would mean to other people. When I have, I have friends of

00:40:07.500 color who were like, Coco, you know, I, one person said, well, welcome to being black.

00:40:14.000 Wow. This is something that people feel happens to them a lot, that they're made to be criminals 0.73

00:40:19.940 and they're being harassed by the police.

00:40:22.880 And so, you know, it's such a touchy subject

00:40:25.040 that I haven't figured out how to really address,

00:40:28.200 but I've just been trying to listen

00:40:29.760 and be open more with my friends.

00:40:32.580 One of my friends who is from Pakistan originally

00:40:35.620 or his parents were, has said,

00:40:37.600 he lives in a predominantly white town,

00:40:39.340 a small town in Virginia.

00:40:40.880 And, you know, he has said,

00:40:42.160 when I leave the bar at night,

00:40:44.000 I have to be extra careful. 1.00

00:40:46.120 You know, where my white friends can just be like, 0.98

00:40:48.120 oh, I'm leaving a bar, I'm drunk and that's fine. And please don't harass. He's like,

00:40:51.220 I've been harassed multiple times by local police, just leaving a bar, not even drunk,

00:40:55.880 just leaving, walking out of a bar and being stopped, just walking down the street and things

00:41:00.560 like this. And so, you know, there's, especially the last couple of years, like there's just been

00:41:05.880 so many issues with cops. And then, and I'm just thinking to myself, like, we have got to speak

00:41:11.900 out about this because it can't just keep happening. We can't keep using these resources

00:41:16.020 to harass and bully people and whether it's because of the color of your skin or because

00:41:21.760 you pissed off some cop's boyfriend or whatever the case may be it just can't happen like it's

00:41:27.740 got to stop because it's ludicrous and I think you know that's the most upsetting part for me

00:41:34.440 overall and the second most upsetting part is how the how the media has handled it especially

00:41:39.480 the local media with, um, ARL now and all of their stuff. It's funny. I did notice that ARL

00:41:47.140 now, you know, they had those, um, three different articles about the bars and this and that when

00:41:52.860 your case was dismissed and you were vindicated, just a tiny little blurb, no article, just like

00:41:57.820 a tiny little, Oh, you know, that story that we put, we had, we had so many articles on

00:42:02.640 little update, you know, no, no. It's so interesting to me that they didn't feel the

00:42:06.600 to write an entire story about the fact that uh your protect the protective order was deemed to

00:42:12.660 be invalid um yeah it's i just found that interesting to me that seems like such a better 0.98

00:42:18.360 story other than oh some tiktoker had a spat with restaurants who gives a shit no one no one cares 0.93

00:42:25.220 if some tiktoker had a spat with restaurants like that's not a story to me the story is hey uh 1.00

00:42:31.540 illegal protective orders are being issued in multiple counties here to her to further bully 0.98

00:42:37.280 and harass a woman who has made a police report about this the police did not help her but they 0.99

00:42:42.480 helped this woman who was in fact harassing her like how come we can't get a story and we can't

00:42:47.040 get a story saying well Coco Briscoe was telling the truth all along it turns out and it turns out

00:42:52.260 the charges have been dismissed the case has been dismissed it's all over yay she can go back to

00:42:57.200 dating TikTok and talk about how, you know, this harassment of women needs to stop. Maybe some 0.85

00:43:03.660 good will come out of this. No, no, no, no, no, no article. In fact, all they do is praise these

00:43:09.680 bars. They went past the controversy. Well, I'm not. I'm not moving past it. And I'm not moving

00:43:15.820 past this with ARL now either, because they owe me an apology. Yeah, the article really,

00:43:22.120 The Arlington Now coverage, really, it seemed so obviously based on really misogynistic stereotypes, like, oh, she's railing against this bar. 0.99

00:43:32.380 And I was like, well, someone who was speaking up about something they experienced, even using the words they would use, basically seemed like the long form version of bitches be crazy. 0.97

00:43:42.160 Am I right? 0.97

00:43:42.980 Like, it just seemed to, like, really rely on a lot of sexist tropes about women. 0.87

00:43:48.240 Right?

00:43:49.320 Absolutely.

00:43:49.800 Absolutely. And the whole situation started making me feel like I was going bananas because I'm like, I'm the only person in this scenario that hadn't told a lie. And I had a platform to demolish these people. I could have gone on and just started making up stories about these people. But I didn't. I was like, this is what they did. This is how they reacted. Here's my proof. The end.

00:44:14.860 and everyone else involved I mean the woman who filed the protective orders completely made up

00:44:22.420 ludicrous stories to tell in court I'm like she is lying on the stand like I wish you could have 0.92

00:44:28.180 been in that courtroom seeing my reaction to these ludicrous things this woman was saying 0.99

00:44:33.900 I was laughing out loud like I'm like oh my god am I getting the giggles in court like this woman 1.00

00:44:40.400 is insane and my lawyer at one point just like reached over and kind of like squeezed my I was

00:44:46.160 like like what is this woman saying and I'm like oh my god and the writers for ARL now are right

00:44:51.300 there just gonna write everything down that she says and the woman is acting like I have attacked

00:44:56.940 her she's like I am terrified of her I can't even look at her in the courtroom because I made a 0.98

00:45:03.000 TikTok telling people what you did to me that makes you terrified and she does this whole 1.00

00:45:08.960 elaborate story. And then my lawyer is like, but has Coco ever threatened you at all or had any

00:45:15.860 contact with you? No. Why are you so scared of people knowing the truth about you? That's the

00:45:21.700 fear. That was the fear. And she's just not a nice person. And that's fine. You don't want to be a

00:45:28.100 nice person. Who cares? But do not send cops to my house and do not publicly humiliate me and tell

00:45:33.740 lies. And I'm just so angry at how nobody bothered to do research. Nobody just bothered to see that

00:45:40.220 I had been talking about being afraid of these people for weeks. Like, I don't know. It's I'm

00:45:46.460 getting very heated when I talk about it because I just I don't know what to do about ARL now. I

00:45:51.480 just I want to I don't know, sue the pants off of them. After the courts dismissed the protective

00:46:00.200 order against her, and prosecutors declined to pursue the charges that she faced for violating

00:46:05.080 it, Coco started using her platform to become an advocate for other women who have spoken

00:46:10.600 up about facing unsafe situations at bars.

00:46:13.780 So there is some, like, I don't want to say good coming out of it, but I know that recently

00:46:18.200 you've taken to using your platform to really help other women who have had dangerous experiences

00:46:23.040 at bars, trying to get them, like, use your platform to get them some accountability. 0.52

00:46:27.400 You know, can you tell me how that came to be and how that's going?

00:46:30.200 You know, that was never my intention. Although I, you know, if I can be of service and of help to these women, I absolutely will use my platform to do that. It wasn't even something that I planned or thought of. But after my whole court situation, people got very interested in the story. And then people tagged me in these videos. So these are videos I haven't come across on my own.

00:46:54.060 people tag me and they're like, Hey, Coco, this is either similar to your story or look what's

00:46:58.900 happening to this person. And I was just kind of reacting to it. Like, Oh my God, this is like,

00:47:05.160 this is a trend. This is happening. Um, there was the one bar in Fullerton that is threatening to

00:47:10.120 sue a woman who got drugged and sexually assaulted in their bar. She took to social media and was

00:47:17.140 like, this bar is not safe for people. She actually had, um, it did have a medical exam.

00:47:21.620 And so she was, in fact, assaulted a lot of times. And I heard this from a nurse who specializes in doing the testing for women who have been drugged and assaulted, who said most of the time, by the time they get to the testing, the drugs are out of their system and they're not traceable.

00:47:38.260 so that you know that's not always a thing people can prove they say oh i got drugged and then you

00:47:42.700 know the toxicology or whatever report comes back saying that there isn't something in their system

00:47:47.160 i'm not a doctor and i don't know but this is just something that was told to me um from someone on

00:47:52.800 on tiktok but anyway uh yes this bar is threatening to sue this woman for posting about it online and

00:48:00.120 i'm just like wow like to me that is just so disgusting and that's what the bars did to me

00:48:06.080 they took to the media calling me a liar and then threatened to sue me and they had told the

00:48:11.360 washington post that they were thinking about filing a lawsuit i'm like for what for saying

00:48:16.740 your bar makes me feel unsafe i can say whatever i want i mean i can we can take to the internet 0.78

00:48:21.660 be like their food sucks and the place is disgusting and the service is awful like why 0.95

00:48:26.160 can't i say it's unsafe that's not illegal you cannot sue me for saying that your bar makes me 0.97

00:48:32.100 feel unsafe and then showing proof of what you did to me like come on and yeah there were things

00:48:38.060 that I initially when I talked to the Washington Post couldn't fully back up um but I can now

00:48:43.180 being tagged in these videos it upsets me because I'm like this is just incredibly common it's easy

00:48:49.280 when you're going through something personally to feel the weight of it all to feel isolated

00:48:53.900 to feel like it's only happening to you and knowing that these similar situations similar

00:48:59.040 situations are happening in women everywhere across the country. I want to do everything I

00:49:04.920 can to help them. And I want to help them avoid my experience. Because it's bad enough, like each

00:49:10.140 step of the way for me was very humiliating and scary. But then knowing that, you know, the

00:49:15.320 newspapers are printing lies about you, the police aren't willing to protect you. It's like, it's

00:49:19.900 terrifying. And I consider myself to be a pretty confident person and a pretty tough cookie.

00:49:25.440 And this whole situation was so mentally and emotionally damaging for me that there were days that I couldn't get out of bed. There were days I couldn't handle it. And, you know, these situations are happening to women much younger than me with not a following on TikTok that can stand behind them like an army, you know, and not awesome people saying, please be on my podcast and tell your story. Right.

00:49:46.880 So, you know, we have to be voices for those people. I don't feel like I actually have a choice at this point, because I can't ignore it. Now. I can't just when people tag me in this, I can't just like, Oh, that's sad. Let me just go back to talking about what I can't do it. I have to address it. So, you know, the big question now is, will this become what my content is about? And maybe I feel like as long as I'm being tagged in these videos, as long as I'm aware of a situation,

00:50:16.740 and I feel like I have something to add or something to say, then I will say it and I'll

00:50:21.000 speak out. But yeah, I, I feel like this, this whole situation has really turned my life into

00:50:28.520 a different direction than I was not expecting. And I, I do feel the weight of that. And I have

00:50:34.280 kind of taken a break from social media a little bit recently, because it gets very overwhelming.

00:50:39.880 And I love, I love getting private messages from people. I love that they share their stories with

00:50:46.160 me. And I love, I love reading this stuff. It's just a lot sometimes. So I have, I'm still a

00:50:53.120 person and TikTok isn't my job. I mean, it is my job, I guess, that I get paid for it. And, you

00:50:58.980 know, it's a little bit. But I'm also a person and I have to cultivate my own personal relationships

00:51:05.440 in my life. And I don't want to spend all day talking to strangers on the internet. You know,

00:51:12.040 I want to be with the people in my life and love them and spend,

00:51:15.420 I don't want to be the girl that's always on her phone.

00:51:17.520 That's so insulting to people that I love when I'm out with my friends,

00:51:20.820 I'm out with my friends. Um, when I'm on a date, I'm on a date,

00:51:24.100 I'm not going to sit there and tick talk. And you know, I do,

00:51:27.240 sometimes I make little videos of restaurants and stuff, but you know,

00:51:29.880 I'm not going to be replying to all these comments all day long because I can't.

00:51:33.740 And so I try to read as many as I can and reply to as many as I can without

00:51:38.520 overwhelming myself because I feel like when you're on a platform like that, you grow so

00:51:45.920 quickly. You're not prepared. No one prepares you for what it feels like to be bombarded with so

00:51:52.960 much information and so many people wanting to talk to you. And it's a gift really, but it also

00:52:01.140 kind of sometimes feels overwhelming. I can only imagine. And I guess that's, I mean, talking about

00:52:07.800 like a happy ending, you know, following your content, I know that you have a lot of like

00:52:12.440 positive, exciting things in your life, in your real offline life developing. And so

00:52:17.980 it's kind of like a nice bookends to the journey of you starting this, this channel to chronicle

00:52:25.680 your, your journey in DC, looking for love, you know, having it, having it be in this point where

00:52:33.120 you like are you seem like you're in a good place in your real life I am I have been really blessed

00:52:40.960 with meeting so many wonderful people and actually most of the people in my life currently I've met

00:52:46.300 on TikTok which is so weird but they have become real life friends and my friends have been

00:52:52.560 incredibly supportive I mean this all of this stuff that has happened to me was so much

00:52:58.120 It was very emotional.

00:53:00.140 And I lost people in my life over it.

00:53:02.960 There were people that kind of distanced themselves.

00:53:05.020 They were kind of scared of this group of people as I was scared of them because these

00:53:08.480 people were harassing some of my friends as well.

00:53:11.140 And people took a step back from me.

00:53:12.880 And that was one of the hardest things.

00:53:14.640 But I understand and I can't ask anyone to fight my battles for me or even be here through

00:53:19.760 that if it makes them uncomfortable.

00:53:22.120 But the friends of mine who have stuck around are lovely and supportive women.

00:53:26.840 and they're strong and they're kind and they have my back um i have been doing well in my

00:53:33.120 dating life i have met someone finally that who maybe looks like harry styles

00:53:37.860 he's wonderful he's just such a kind man and he has been really supportive about all of this and

00:53:47.680 this is all of this was very scary to tell people about like hey i got arrested for making tiktoks

00:53:52.840 in the newspapers make me sound like a psycho. Like, it's a hard thing to bring into an already

00:53:57.440 complicated situation because dating is already difficult enough. But he was very receptive and

00:54:02.680 open to hearing my side. And he has just been really wonderful. And it was still new. So who

00:54:09.260 knows what's going to happen. But I feel like I have a new friend in my life and somebody who

00:54:13.720 does care about me that I care about. And I, you know, I hope the best for us in this journey

00:54:19.540 going forward it's so far so good um I have started a new job that I like and my my co-workers

00:54:25.980 are lovely and my boss seems to be great and so you know it's now moving forward I'm just trying

00:54:32.980 to look for the good things and that's trying that's what I'm trying to focus on it just feels

00:54:38.260 sometimes like the negative voices are louder to us and uh you know I'm trying to find peace with

00:54:46.720 If I am choosing to move forward with being a content creator, putting so much of myself out there publicly, this is just going to be part of it.

00:54:56.320 The hate and the trolling and all of that.

00:55:00.040 But speaking out about women's safety is something that I will always do.

00:55:03.700 And it's become such a huge deal for me.

00:55:06.960 And hopefully I can help protect other women.

00:55:09.460 We'll see you next time.

00:55:39.460 Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,

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00:56:09.460 Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to serve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're

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00:56:25.100 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months in captivity,

00:56:32.140 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:56:37.960 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

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00:57:02.560 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

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00:57:05.620 We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

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00:57:30.780 I'm Nick Turturro.

00:57:31.900 You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman.

00:57:37.000 And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza to a new guest.

00:57:42.060 I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - April 12, 2022

Arrested for making TikToks？ Yup. It happened to Coco Briscoe

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