00:01:01.760We've got this brand new podcast here, all about celebrity, film, TV, showbiz, gossip, music, fashion books, and of course, some pretty delicious scandals.
00:01:12.460I believe you can learn from celebrity.
00:01:14.200And after 30 years in entertainment journalism, running People and Us Weekly, I'm looking forward to chatting to you, Joe, a Philly girl who's a former gossip columnist.
00:09:16.540You and I have covered Hayden, you know, as she came up in this industry, honestly.
00:09:22.440And it's always very difficult for me to see a young woman struggling so much,
00:09:30.540either in or out of the spotlight, but someone who I think, because they have been in the spotlight
00:09:35.860for so long, it's very difficult for them to ask for help. Or when they do ask for help,
00:09:41.480they're simply not getting it. And we've seen so many different versions of young women like Hayden
00:09:49.180who have passed in incredibly unfortunate ways. Michelle Trachtenberg, Dave Chase, Hayden.
00:09:57.440and i mean it just seems to come from one starting point it's that hollywood and putting yourself out
00:10:05.620there in the way these young women are forced to do in a different way than men can be very toxic
00:10:10.740when you start doing this at such a young age i mean i think the the cause of death for hayden
00:10:16.520it has not been disclosed and it's still pending but you cannot argue what you've just said is
00:10:21.440being a child star and and entering that difficult that difficult world at such an early age
00:10:28.900is something you can't argue that is detrimental and hayden spent her entire adult life talking
00:10:34.300about what what that cost her what being a child star and being in hollywood cost her and and we
00:10:40.260and as we said we've watched this pattern for the three decades that i've covered this and it it it
00:10:46.220starts you to wonder what what should be done about this like i have worked in celebrity and
00:10:51.020entertainment and i met my husband and then he decided to train as an actor and i remember when
00:10:56.040this happened and i was like i don't think we want him to i don't think we want him doing that
00:10:59.900and after covering this for so many years you don't you don't like even a robust adult it's a
00:11:06.380challenging career to go into the disappointments it's the only i think it's the only profession
00:11:11.780that the more effort you put in that you don't get necessarily get better results coming out it's
00:11:16.920so much chance. There's so much rejection. And then when you become famous, that is a completely
00:11:22.940also another complete psychological difficulty. And so I wasn't over the moon that my husband was
00:11:29.220wanting to be an actor, let alone children. And when people ask me for tips for the children to
00:11:34.200get famous, I'm kind of like, my tip is don't get famous. Wait until they can make that decision
00:11:39.040as a fully formed adult. Totally, totally. I mean, fame, as you just said, is very, very hard
00:11:45.200for a fully formed adult human being and it is absolutely bananas for a child for a young person
00:11:56.060a teenager going through all of the ups and downs of figuring out who they are in the world
00:12:01.780and then also having the burden of doing that in front of a camera but also so many of these young
00:12:08.340people become the breadwinners in their family their parents are working for them it creates a
00:12:14.640very unhealthy dynamic. And like you've said, we've seen this so many times. We've also seen
00:12:20.260so many young people who have struggled, but are thankfully still with us. You and I covered
00:12:27.100Amanda Bynes for quite some time. I mean, the story, it is so similar. And I just kept thinking
00:12:34.640about all these young women when I was reading all of the tributes to Hayden about how many
00:12:40.980we covered that are that are still around who I still think may not be getting the help
00:12:45.760that they need. And so I think that we do have to see something change in how Hollywood treats
00:12:54.100its young stars and its talent. And it's not just Hollywood anymore either, right? These kids are
00:12:58.700coming up younger than ever on YouTube, social media. There's even less regulation in those
00:13:04.900industries than there is in hollywood and i think that as consumers of this kind of content you know
00:13:11.740we need to be the ones putting the pressure on these industries to say you need to take better
00:13:17.480care of your people because these are the consequences for sure and i i talked to some
00:13:24.340psychologists about the consequences and why it is so bad and i think we all know that young
00:13:29.380performers like they don't have a normal identity because you're as it as a child your identity
00:13:35.200builds through trial and failure and people who know people know who you really are but the thing
00:13:41.000is when you are young and you become famous your identity is your screen persona and you don't set
00:13:47.420your real identity yet and so that is difficult but i talked to dr paul hokermeyer who's a leading
00:13:54.040psychologist in the celebrity space he wrote a book called fragile power that i would recommend
00:13:58.000And he pointed out that it's not just psychological, that it's physical. The stress that gets put on you as a child leads to issues physically. And if you look at both Hayden, Michelle and DeVay, that they didn't die of the same thing. It was heart failure for one, a diseased pancreas for another, and immune system failures.
00:14:18.200but like all of these different things happening to their organs are resulting from decades of
00:14:25.080chronic stress from being a child star and that kind of reframes the whole thing for me
00:14:30.520of course because when like i said when you are a child star and you happen to be
00:14:34.920the breadwinner of your family which many of these kids are you have the problems of an adult
00:14:39.540you have you have the financial problems of an adult the financial burden of an adult but then
00:14:45.720And also the kinds of problems that a kid, a regular kid would never have to think about, like, where is my family going to live? How will my siblings go to school when I have to be in a certain place and my parents have to be in a certain place for my work? I mean, these are very grown up questions. And the stress and the impact on a body is so, so real.
00:15:08.360And again, I don't think that there are enough regulations out there.
00:15:12.700Melissa Gilbert, one of one of my favorite child actors, big fan of original Little House on the Prairie, also new Little House on the Prairie, big fan all around.
00:15:21.660She wrote a really, really great Substack essay where she was calling out some of the unions and saying, hey, we just need better regulations for these kids.
00:15:34.920And Anna Paquin posted something, too, who also Anna came up so, so young, you know, saying we have to truly think about how these young pre-sexualized female children have been sexualized at a very young age and the profoundly sad and untimely ends that so many of them are meeting.
00:15:59.520And so, I mean, I think this is really hard.
00:16:01.660It's really hard to talk about where exactly this goes,
00:16:05.240especially as the industry just gets bigger and bigger.
00:16:08.000I mean, there are some different restrictions.
00:16:11.840There's something in California called Coogan's Law,
00:16:14.160which restricts people from not only saving 15% of the child's wages.
00:20:09.080So we're going back to the business of Hollywood, your special expertise space.
00:20:14.320And I'm interested in what you know about the Beckhams.
00:20:19.260What do you know about this family fallout?
00:20:20.840yeah i mean i know the broad strokes of the fallout i'll tell you my kids are getting very
00:20:27.140into the spice girls now the baby the three and a half year old just does a crackling rendition of
00:20:33.440wannabe these days we'll have to get we'll have to get her on the show unless that's going to be
00:20:37.440damaging to her psyche i mean again the things we have to think about these days but like so what i
00:20:41.860what i know is that brooklyn has basically cut off his parents posh and bex after getting married
00:20:48.240that he skipped david's 50th birthday he said it's game over with his mom and dad that there's
00:20:54.600no reconciliation coming and his wife nicola has been posting these like little family photos that
00:21:00.660feel very like shady and directly aimed at the rest of the family so it seems like it's still
00:21:07.500going on i don't entirely know the roots of the feud or what has what has brooklyn there was there
00:21:15.960There was a big thing at the wedding around an inappropriate dance made by your daughter's favourite Spice Girl, Posh, Victoria.
00:21:24.940But I think the essence is Brooklyn has felt very commercialised through his childhood and used.
00:21:29.960And there's a story buzzing this summer, bubbling, around a trademark of Brooklyn's name.
00:21:35.920And this is what we're here to talk about today.
00:21:38.340Because in 2016, Victoria filed the UK trademark for Brooklyn Beckham when he was 17, plus all of the other kids, Romeo, Cruise and Harper, simultaneously.
00:21:49.220And it covers running businesses around cosmetics, clothing, toys and entertainment so that none of the four of them can launch a business under their birth name without the permission of Victoria.
00:22:01.860So, like, is this a normal thing for celebrities to do, Joe?
00:22:06.780Because to me, that sounds kind of crazy, but you've studied celebrity businesses.
00:22:13.820Yeah, no, this actually doesn't seem abnormal to me at all.
00:22:17.980Do I think that it feels like a breach of trust if Victoria and David Beckham truly did not discuss this with their underage children before that happened?
00:22:28.820I don't think we fully know the whole story on that, but it's very common for a parent, especially a parent who has a very famous name and runs a family's celebrity business, and that's what this is, to try to protect that family.
00:22:45.400And so I think you can look at it from the other way.
00:24:58.500truly upsetting consequence of a mother
00:25:01.360like truly kind of playing mommy dearest in their in their adult children's lives and you know i
00:25:07.900mean hopefully it doesn't come to this but at the end of the day if she doesn't pass this copyright
00:25:13.900along then it looks like he would probably have to sue his mother just to get the rights to his
00:25:19.180name back i'm hoping things go a lot smoother now he's 27 i think that he can be trusted with his
00:25:26.460own name but um there's only one family that has dominated the headlines more um this summer than
00:25:33.540the beckhams but it is another british family i hadn't paid that much attention to harry and
00:25:38.480megan for a while i feel like there was a quiet period and now my social feeds are just like all
00:25:43.700harry and megan all the time but this is this is what everyone that i know has been talking about
00:25:49.980do you care about them do you care about this story i do i do i mean i care about royals i
00:25:55.880i enjoy royal content i am also a megan markle fan i mean speaking of smart business women i
00:26:03.300think she is a really smart business woman i think she's been treated very unfairly
00:26:07.400by the royal family and also by the british tabloid media and you know i just i just want
00:26:15.200both teams to feel like they're winning i want everyone to feel happy at this point uh and so
00:26:19.720Yeah, I do do follow these guys and I do kind of feel like a weird vested parasocial interest in Meghan and Harry being happy and getting theirs.
00:26:30.620So now they have decided to move back to the UK.
00:26:37.600At the moment, they're not giving up their American home, but they're going to be there for the most part.0.73
00:26:42.560I mean, what do you think that feels like a backtrack?
00:26:45.560What is interesting to you about them moving back?
00:26:48.300I mean, honestly, for me, what's the most interesting is, again, as a mom, it's thinking about how you want to raise your children.
00:26:57.600What is the importance of having those children around other members of your of your close family, even if some of those relationships are a little bit toxic?
00:27:07.140You know, exposing them to the family and also to the culture that one of those parents is from does feel incredibly important.
00:27:15.780I also think that it's important to note that they are just so gargantuanly rich that just because they're going back and, you know, making the UK their home base doesn't mean they won't be back here a bunch.
00:27:27.600I think that Harry wants his children to grow up in the British culture, in the British school system, which is very different from the American school system and still a very different culture.
00:27:38.100And he wants to expose his kids to that.
00:27:41.080you know, they'll also probably have a much greater level of protection and security as
00:27:46.160these kids are leaving the nest and are and by nest, I mean, you know, preschool. But as these
00:27:51.440kids are starting to venture out more into the world to go to schools and to spend time with
00:27:57.600friends, it is likely going to be a lot easier for them to be in the UK. So I think it feels like
00:28:06.280a family move to me certainly not a career move because i do think that there is a lot less megan
00:28:15.160can do there same for harry but at the same time they can work from anywhere right so well i mean
00:28:23.600part of the reason it seems like believing is because hollywood things haven't worked out and
00:28:28.560they've exhausted all the deals they can do there but megan will possibly still be like doing like
00:28:36.260like doing her lifestyle brand from the UK
00:29:06.260um what the issue here is like will william let harry make up with him and like i think from
00:29:11.420these six thousand miles away it's easy to ignore this issue and be like we don't live in the same
00:29:16.080country you've hurt me and my feelings i'm not going to listen to this however now he's on his
00:29:21.880doorstep they're going to have to be around each other at events and how that is going to work out
00:29:27.920like are they going to be together at christmas um doing that walk charles let andrew be there
00:29:34.180And he was disgraced. So they can't really avoid these situations. And as William gets closer to the crown, I think he's going to look a little bit silly if he's considered petty and not making up with his brother. He's going to be a world leader. He's the head of the government in image. And so I think he's going to feel the pressure to make this up.
00:29:57.660But at the moment, my reporting is saying that William is being very stubborn and that
00:30:02.580he is not wanting to reconsider making up with Harry.
00:30:06.620But I do think he will eventually make up with Harry, not because of his heart, but
00:30:10.880because of his head, because he realizes it's the sensible thing for him to do for
00:30:14.440the monarchy, because it's a PR crisis.
00:30:16.500If they don't, it weakens the monarchy.
00:30:18.480And that is the prize that William and Charles are put sometimes before family.
00:31:27.760I think that they were incredibly cold and toxic to Meghan from the very beginning.
00:31:33.480Why do you think they shouldn't apologize?
00:31:36.380I mean, I don't think that evidence is there.
00:31:40.120I think they were quite warm to begin with, and they were this foursome.
00:31:43.720I find it interesting talking to a Meghan advocate, so I'm finding this interesting.
00:31:52.400And I agree that a lot of things that the press put through Meghan is through a negative filter, and so I feel empathy for her in that sense.
00:32:02.200But I don't think William and Kate, Catherine, were ever negative or cold towards Meghan, but I'm interested.
00:32:13.720Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I saw so much reporting the other way. And maybe we're fed completely different algorithms because you are a British gentleman and I am just, you know, a scrappy American. And it knows that I like Meghan.
00:32:28.380I mean, but from everything that I've read, Kate was not very welcoming to Meghan when she came into the family and that she could have done more to help her try to fit in in this world that was really, really hard for her, given what the press was putting her through, because Kate had been through that, a much less toxic version of it, mind you.
00:32:50.040But she still went through her own media scrutiny, especially when they first got together.
00:32:55.040And I think that she could have done more to help Megan through that.
00:32:59.600But again, I think that it's hard to know for sure, right?
00:33:04.020It's hard to know what is actually happening inside this family dynamic.
00:33:08.800I mean, but I'm also just curious about, like, what's going to happen now that they're there?