00:00:49.700We want to know what to take back to the water cooler with us.
00:00:53.180He recently left the world of celebrity magazines to launch a newsletter called Celebrity Intelligence.
00:00:58.860I'll let Dan tell you what it's all about. But today, we are going to dive headfirst into the
00:01:04.480Taylor-Frankie-Paul bachelorette scandal. Dan's got a great take on it. But also into the recent
00:01:10.260footage that was leaked of Justin Timberlake's DUI arrest. Frankly, both Dan and I, although we
00:01:16.700do not condone drinking and driving, think that the video makes him a lot more relatable and a lot
00:01:22.100more human. Hello, Dan Wigford, one of my oldest and most handsome friends.
00:01:33.820Less of the old, more of the handsome. Thank you, Gio.
00:01:36.480So, so handsome. So handsome. We have worked together. Again, both of us are young and spry
00:01:42.760and really in the prime of our lives. But we we've worked together for for years in the journalism
00:01:50.200space, in the celebrity and entertainment space. You were my mentor for a long time. You taught me
00:01:55.660pretty much, you know, everything I know about celebrity magazines. So I should thank you for
00:02:01.340that. And also you kept me there longer, longer than I would have been there otherwise.
00:02:08.140I mean, you were prolific. You'd be getting gossip on the phone in meetings whilst writing a book
00:02:13.560concurrently, seeing somebody who can multitask. So that capability was so inspiring.
00:02:19.560Secretly, but not so secretly, writing a book in my office at the magazine.
00:02:24.880Well, and now you're my go-to person, my go-to person for like, what should I even be looking at or caring about when it comes to celebrity?
00:02:34.120Because even though I was immersed in this world for so long, I'm not anymore.
00:02:39.000I don't know who to follow, who to pay attention to.
00:02:42.540I don't know which Kardashian-Jenner is which anymore.
00:02:45.960and you are now striking out on your own and you're delivering this to people in a newsletter
00:02:52.660and right now you are going to be our celebrity expert on under the influence tell everyone where
00:02:57.880they can find more of you and then tell me what i should be thinking about and talking about
00:03:01.920in the world of celebrity this week um well thank you joe that introduction was very sweet um i
00:03:09.540I have started a platform called Celebrity Intelligence.
00:03:15.200It is a newsletter once a week and with breaking news blasts as well.
00:03:53.180I was an entertainment reporter at birth.
00:03:55.800and that's why I want it to exist because I want to help the consumer navigate away from these
00:04:04.360stories and away from areas that feel icky and bring a little bit of meaningfulness here I want
00:04:09.940to be like your smartest friend who happens to know a lot about entertainment and and everything
00:04:15.660bringing everything that where there is truth I have a lot of trusted relationships I'm not
00:04:21.400spending my time with speculation. There's no BS, no badly sourced nonsense that comes with a lot
00:04:28.520of entertainment and celebrity stories. I'm also a big believer that you should not be ashamed in
00:04:32.940this. I think there's a lot of misogyny around entertainment and gossip because it's seen as a
00:04:38.640women's field. And I believe the higher your IQ, you're greater your need for celebrity stories1.00
00:04:43.220because you can learn from them. It's self-care. The world is hard. Come and read these stories
00:04:49.140in a place where everything is true, where it has some actual meaningful takeaway whilst also
00:04:56.460having the enjoyment of this delicious world of celebrity and entertainment.
00:05:00.600Totally, because you deserve it. This is what you deserve in this dumpster fire of a world.
00:05:05.940So Dan, tell me, what are the stories I should be paying attention to this week? Because I also
00:05:10.700have stopped doom scrolling. And since I've stopped doom scrolling the news, a lot of the
00:05:15.380celebrity stuff gets blocked out too. So I'm not getting anything at this point,
00:05:20.140except for videos of otters holding hands. I mean, to me, there has been only one story
00:05:25.800since the quiet week. It's a quiet week after the Oscars. So things generally go quiet and
00:05:29.640there's not much to break through. And somebody like me who works in entertainment, it's hard
00:05:33.260to work when nothing's happening. But one story has dominated the headlines and that's the
00:05:37.260cancellation of the next season of ABC's Bachelorette, which is interesting on so many levels.
00:05:43.200You've got the intricacies of this reality star and what is going on in her life with legal issues.
00:05:48.440But it also speaks to bigger issues in the world and the entertainment industry and society.
00:05:54.640Like this decision to cancel the show on Skull's kind of high stakes reckoning regarding brand safety, the acceptability of reality stars and the decline of traditional television audiences and what you need to do to try and help that.
00:06:08.820And also in a positive light, it shows us that society has such a low tolerance for domestic abuse in a good way.
00:06:18.880I mean, this story, like you said, it tells us a lot of things.
00:06:22.420You and I are bachelor, bachelorette veterans.
00:06:25.980I was the second season. I arrived in America in 2002.
00:06:31.320I interviewed Trista Wren, who was the then bachelorette, and the magazine I was working for at the moment, put them on the cover.
00:06:37.780And it was the first time they'd ever been on the Bachelor franchise had been on the cover of the Celebrity Weekly.
00:06:43.640Well, because in the beginning of reality television, a lot of skeptics and a lot of people in the world of celebrity were like, reality television is a blip.
00:07:13.100Whereas if I'm watching a television show, a scripted show, it's harder to translate that passion and that fan base into magazine sales and engagement in digital stories.
00:07:25.280These people feel like you're friends is the thing.
00:07:27.520And so you're you're deeply, deeply invested in their storylines, which truly are storylines, because we know better than anyone that there are producers shaping these shows.
00:07:38.060In the beginning, in the early days, did you ever think the Bachelor franchise would go on this long?
00:07:43.840I personally didn't. I'm British. I probably lean more towards the trashy drama and the excitement.
00:07:53.260i watched the first season because i really wanted to know what america was about and i
00:07:57.300thought so this is core americana and a big big show um but for me as a viewer i did not find it
00:08:04.000compelling because i found it very um formulaic and very set up and then after a few seasons the
00:08:11.480cut you'd see the couples break up and so the engagement and the high stakes didn't feel real
00:08:16.540to me but it still was real to my audience so i would always assign people who are mad fans to
00:08:21.660this and I would approach the show very much in a sense of like do I find this interesting from a
00:08:27.180human story perspective not as a fan who watches the show every week and that would be my barometer
00:08:32.160to how whether this story is interesting is there actually a story there for somebody who doesn't
00:08:37.300watch the show well and I think that that is what always made you I'm just going to toot your horn
00:08:41.720for one second like a really great editor-in-chief of a celebrity magazine and I used to say too that
00:08:47.900this felt like what set me apart often as a reporter and a news director, because I wasn't
00:08:54.520as invested in celebrity culture as a lot of our fans were. I thought these were interesting human
00:08:59.460stories, right? And that celebrities had, you know, often interesting, sometimes a trainwreck
00:09:05.760story to share with humanity. And we wanted to find the nugget that would appeal to so many
00:09:11.700people. But we had a staff of reporters who were rabid fans and who were so good at getting close
00:09:18.840to The Bachelor and Bachelorette candidates and just getting them to spill everything before the
00:09:24.800show was ready to reveal it. I mean, I have so much to say on all of that. I totally concur with you.
00:09:29.820Celebrities are just the leading protagonists in the world. And so they're the most interesting
00:09:33.920people to tell stories because everybody cares about them. Everybody knows them. And so it's
00:09:38.800just modern day shakespeare it's just very interesting stories and it's the takeaway take
00:09:44.220away the celebrity's names is this interesting is that that's what makes a compelling story
00:09:48.220but back to that i mean back in the days when celebrity weeklies had a lot of money
00:09:52.960we would send we i remember we sent we used to have money that was crazy it was really
00:09:58.240really insane reporters would follow them on honeymoon i remember some man i think geordie
00:10:05.280went to Bali, one of our reporters. Jordi went so many places. Yes. They lived a great life. And
00:10:11.660then you get into your 30s and you want to be at home and watch television and not be traveling
00:10:16.480around the world. But yeah, we intensely followed these folks. Also, sometimes we'd work with ABC
00:10:23.640and other times you would try and get your own reporting as well. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So
00:10:30.040In the past five years, the Bachelor franchise has not been doing as well as it was previously.
00:10:38.040Maybe, I mean, maybe even longer than that.
00:10:40.280I truly see the selection of Taylor, Frankie Paul, who became so famous as an influencer.
00:10:47.600And this, as you said, this story is about the wider world of celebrity that we live in.
00:10:52.400Influencers are in so many ways the new breed of celebrity.
00:10:56.560and so taylor rose to prominence on mom talk and then obviously on the hulu show the secret lives0.72
00:11:03.380of mormon wives this was a very calculated decision on the bachelorette's part to cast her
00:11:09.940what do you think about that i mean they had had a case study just the year before which is extremely
00:11:16.840successful dancing with the stars brought on um taylor frankie pool's co-stars jen affleck and
00:11:22.680whitney levitt um for an appearance and that made the show the most watched series of that decade
00:11:30.040that is a huge fact when you're dealing with declining network ratings and you achieve that
00:11:35.480success that is wonderful because you're bringing the eyeballs from social media and from another
00:11:42.240platform hulu of this hit show onto um a more tired legacy show and it really brings the buzz
00:11:50.400you're getting more audience and buzz on social media because these folks are on social media and
00:11:54.820huge on social media and it was hugely successful so the new producer of the bachelorette i think
00:12:00.420wanted to replicate this and brought taylor who was the biggest star of that show but the issue is
00:12:07.520this is a different type of show and taylor is a different personality to these people
00:12:12.960the bachelorette is a puritanical show based in fantasy and projection and based on the belief
00:12:19.280that you can still fall in love and there's a fairy tale here.
00:12:23.840And then Taylor had a complicated history, which had been well documented.
00:12:30.540And I do think that that is what was lost a little bit.
00:12:34.380The Bachelor is a different kind of beast.
00:12:36.680It is very, even though so many of the viewers know that a lot of this is highly produced,
00:12:43.680highly staged, there is always the hope that true love is real, that true love is possible.
00:12:48.340I mean, it is a very aspirational show in a lot of ways.
00:12:52.180And knowing Taylor's backstory, knowing her complicated history with Dakota, knowing the fact that she might not even be single while she's on this show, that there may be a lot going on with her ex in the background, that was going to puncture the fairy tale from the very start.
00:13:10.180And the executives knew exactly who she was going into this.
00:13:27.680So basically TMZ revealed a video of her previous legal entanglement with her ex where she is video where she's captured throwing chairs at his face in front of their child.
00:13:42.880And this is what sparked the cancellation because they wanted to give the family time and to look after the family, ABC said.
00:13:53.180But like the issue is everything that was on this video had been reported.
00:13:59.500And so that is where this gray area and this strange element exists.
00:14:04.520Should they really have greenlit somebody who had had these charges against them and pleaded guilty to these charges?
00:14:13.620And just because the fact that the video came out is the reason why the show got cancelled.
00:14:20.300Right. And I also think that there is something there about the fact that there was a child in the video.
00:14:26.580And the worst thing you can be in America is a quote unquote bad mother.0.99
00:14:31.960Had we just seen her throwing these benches again, you know, culturally, America does not love an angry woman.0.99
00:14:39.640But I think they could get past that more than, you know, moving forward from someone who is being incredibly violent in front of a child.
00:14:49.040Particularly for ABC and Disney, Disney who pride themselves as a family for having a family friendly image.
00:14:57.100So that contradiction there was a huge contradiction between ABC's need to get these Gen Z ratings and like Disney's non-negotiable brand safety in this environment.
00:15:09.800So cancellation wasn't just like a moral choice.
00:15:14.420It was a corporate risk mitigating strategy.
00:15:17.360When the message drama crossed the line and it involved a child, it was very important.
00:15:23.280And so I'm sure you're right. The idea of a woman possibly harming her child, it is so against Disney's ethics and beliefs, and it could bring down the whole franchise if it escalated.0.54
00:15:42.400Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So in some ways, this did feel like a knee jerk reaction. And in other ways, it is also just such it shows how interconnected all of these media companies have become.
00:15:58.840The fact that ABC is in the Disney umbrella, but then so is Hulu, right?
00:16:04.700And so these decisions become a lot more complicated when you're trying to be a very family-friendly, family-forward brand.
00:16:13.400But then you also want to capture the eyeballs of Gen Z who want this more salacious content.
00:16:22.060I mean, reality TV has got messier and messier and it's got bigger and bigger and more popular and kind of cooler.
00:16:27.540like now there's no shame to watching reality tv when we first started reporting on this
00:16:32.200in the 2000s reality tv was a dirty little secret you didn't brand so dirty now yeah you didn't
00:16:38.740brand something reality tv now people are proud to be fans of reality tv um and it's and it aligns
00:16:46.840and it has just as much impact as other culture and it's kind of cool but so it has got messier
00:16:53.940And so to deliver that, like what's happened here for Bravo would provide a whole season's
00:24:09.980And just saying, these tests are really hard.
00:24:12.960i thought he came up as a nice guy who made a huge mistake and um i think it humanized him it
00:24:20.000made him feel like just like us and it i think it shows that sometimes um in times of trouble just
00:24:26.720be transparent and own your issues and and don't try and hide them yeah i i totally agree i mean
00:24:33.440it i haven't thought that much about justin timberlake lately uh but this yeah but the
00:24:39.300video actually made me like him like him i was like hey i'm like you are you know to quote us
00:24:43.980weekly stars they're just like us and you know i'm like well what would i be like if i got pulled
00:24:48.580over i'm like i think i'd kind of be we would turn into karen's we would be a little charity
00:24:54.840be a little charity um but yeah like i i on one hand i get that his team you know celebrity teams
00:25:02.300they want to they want to shut down as much as possible right like i get why they tried to keep
00:25:07.140this footage from going public in the wake of the world tour. But frankly, I don't think this
00:25:11.380did anything to hurt his brand. I think it made him a little bit, I mean, obviously you drove
00:25:16.120drunk. Bad idea, bro. Okay. But his reaction and the way that he interacted with the cops just
00:25:23.220made him a little bit more human, which I think is good in this, in this, the current age of
00:25:29.900celebrity that we're in. So yeah, I don't see a downside for Justin to this video being released
00:25:36.560And, you know, I think they probably spent so much money on legal fees to to keep this under wraps.
00:25:43.780But alas, I mean, nothing I think I think it's pretty impossible to keep the majority of videos of footage under wraps these days.
00:25:51.800Something is always going to get out there.
00:25:54.840I mean, yeah, in the days of citizen journalism and everything being recorded, it's hard.
00:26:01.200I think celebrity publicists, when we first started out, could train their celebrities and own the narrative and there would be like 10 pesky outlets who could reveal stuff.
00:26:10.700Now everybody has a phone. You can't hide anything. You have to train celebrities to try and live their life in a more sensible way and be aware of the pitfalls that can happen.
00:26:19.900Yeah, well, and also I do think that, you know, when there used to be so fewer outlets reporting, especially in the early 2000s, it was less likely for something to be leaked or to be released because then the police station is like, oh, who do we even talk to to release this thing?
00:26:39.920Now you can just put it on Instagram. You could just put it on TikTok. Like, it's very easy to stream anything at this point. Like you said, everyone is a citizen journalist.
00:26:49.900Exactly. I think because of that, the money has gone out of media. And so there used to be a more monetary in the tabloid world, a more monetary motive to somebody to put that out in the world.
00:27:03.540As a citizen, I might not put something horrible about somebody out in the world on my own, but I think some people would be like, oh, I can earn some money by going to the National Enquirer. Now the National Enquirer probably has not got enough money to make that worth somebody, somebody worth selling something scandalous on a celebrity. So there's two different ways of looking at that.
00:27:22.820Yeah, it is. I've thought about that a lot as as just first as a celebrity journalist and then also as a citizen, because I've seen I've seen some bad behavior.
00:27:31.460We've all seen some some bad behavior and even in recent years.
00:27:35.500And I thought, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm like, should I tell someone about this?
00:27:40.000What what what what is the point of sharing this thing that I just saw and putting it out there?
00:27:45.780But I do think, you know, when we live in a world of like the algorithm and getting famous digitally, that can also be an incentive. And celebrities just need to remember that. And we talked about this all the time. Like, you know, you are constantly on a stage for better or worse. That might not be fair.
00:28:05.660but you're also often being paid a premium to live your life this way to live your life in the
00:28:12.040spotlight and I mean there's truly just no escape from it at this point literally anyone can report
00:28:17.900on you now I mean I've thought about this a lot in my 29 years of doing this and I'm contemplating
00:28:25.580writing about this in the coming weeks which is how to be famous in 2026 and you see a lot of
00:28:31.500people struggling with this chapel rhone is the biggest case study at the moment recent two
00:28:36.720incidents where she filmed um herself telling the paparazzi to get the hell out and then there's
00:28:42.740been an incident with jude law's daughter who the security a security team went and recommended a
00:28:49.600young girl who just walked past her table and so it's just like how do you deal with that and then
00:28:54.280you have boy george who's telling her that like she should just get with the program and be happy
00:28:58.580to be famous there's different ways approaching and people need boundaries um and and being
00:29:03.700famous is incredibly successful but there are things you can do acting more like a normal
00:29:09.740person i'm walking through the world is actually a way of not getting noticed i've spoken to a-list
00:29:14.060celebrities who told me their tricks and walking fast is a way that nobody notices you putting
00:29:20.140baseball caps on going to don't go to the awful celebrity places that celebrities go to go to
00:29:25.720normal places. There's reasons why Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd and other celebrities live a normal
00:29:33.000life and don't get captured. They're not wandering around in limousines wearing dark glasses
00:29:38.000and being conspicuous. Yeah, no, I mean, and when people ask me this question, I always
00:29:44.160kind of give the example of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. And I'm like, can you even name Matt Damon's
00:29:49.660kids? Most people can't, right? He has been very good at protecting his family, protecting his
00:29:55.160privacy. Because as a celebrity, you really can. You can. I mean, there are some places you go
00:30:00.280where you are definitely getting recognized. But I often feel like the celebrities who we see all
00:30:05.680the time are the ones who want to be seen all of the time, who are putting themselves out there,
00:30:10.620who are going to the celebrity hotspots where they freaking know the paparazzi are going to be.
00:30:15.300And we know this very well because oftentimes when we were working at the magazines,
00:30:19.820we would be called by the celebrity publicists themselves and say,
00:30:24.580hey, this person is going to this location.
00:31:14.300I just believe that being interested in celebrity is about being interested in people.
00:31:19.540it's been about interested in life if you're not interested in these people then it's just
00:31:24.320snobbism these folks are telling interesting stories that you can learn from and so you
00:31:30.080shouldn't feel guilty about them celebrities also they use their platforms for good and you can look
00:31:37.320at a celebrity's life and you can learn from them and i find that really interesting and i i as i0.82
00:31:45.600said earlier i think there's a lot of snobbism against this field because it's seen as women's
00:31:50.880interest and the word gossip actually came from 15th century england and it was a very positive
00:31:59.460word it came from goskin which was about women supporting each other through childbirth and
00:32:06.240talking to each other and communicating and then in the 16th century the church became big and they
00:32:12.840outlawed women talking to each other because they were fearful of the power of that and they
00:32:18.940demonized the word and it had negative connotations so i think there's a lot of negativity around it
00:32:24.560and misogyny around it but this is just about being interested in life you can learn from it
00:32:30.020it's escapism the world is so hard right now like if you if you sing on the bath on us weekly's
00:32:36.660instagram or reading people.com or like even reading an old magazine or enjoying these
00:32:42.300reality shows don't be ashamed of it there's a lot to learn from it it's just it's just
00:32:48.120anthropology it's being interested in people i think it is anthropology um i remember i had an
00:32:54.560ob-gyn uh back in the mid-2000s when we were working together and i told her what i did and
00:33:01.300she grabbed my arm and she almost teared up and she's like thank you she's like the other day
00:33:06.360I delivered 10 babies. One of the births almost went really wrong. And I had a hard day. The baby
00:33:14.480ended up being fine. She's like, but I needed an escape. And then I came home and I got in the
00:33:19.780bath and I read one of your magazines and it just got me out of my head. And that's what I needed.
00:33:26.020And it was so sweet. I remember that to this day. It was so long ago, right? 20 years ago.
00:33:30.940But I think that. I do think that these stories tell us so much about human beings and where we're at as a culture, too. I mean, you know this. I switched a lot between covering celebrities and politics. I mean, I literally just boomeranged between the two because they're also so similar.
00:33:52.060Being a celebrity journalist made me a really good political reporter because I was just such a quick study of humans and also an amazing lie detector and truth at that point. Right.
00:34:06.760Political operatives and celebrity publicists and personal publicists are very, very similar.
00:34:14.140They're very, very similar. Exactly. Exactly. Well, and now, I mean, the line is ridiculously blurry.
00:34:19.840Who is a celebrity? Who is a politician? Yeah, all of it. All of it. But yeah, I think that if aliens were to come here or if people were to uncover our artifacts hundreds of years, hence they would learn a lot of the story of humanity through how we related to celebrity culture and also who we elevated as celebrities, which has changed so much over the years.
00:34:46.100When we started our careers, it was movie stars.
00:34:49.320TV stars were the ones who were at a bit of a lower level.
00:34:52.560And then it was reality stars who were the lowest rung on the ladder.
00:34:57.700And now we have influencers creeping into the world.
00:35:01.360I mean, it has changed completely in the 29 years that I've covered this.
00:35:05.980The diffraction of media and how disparate it is means that the shows I'm watching are not the shows you're watching.
00:35:13.960My celebrities are not your celebrities.
00:35:15.420The people I'm watching on my screen are not the same people.
00:35:18.500And so the big A-listers are still the same people.
00:35:22.320They're like the Julias, the Beyonce's.
00:35:24.440These are the people when we started our career, they were the most famous.