524 - Get Your Blade Hands Ready

This is Exactly Right. People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer. But in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire of faith and fear. From Exactly Right and Adonde Media, this is Too Faced, John of God. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Switching to Virgin Media's lightning fast broadband is easy. We'll handle everything for you. That smooth broadband and smooth switching. Smooth like a walrus on a speedboat, powering through open, stewarded waters. Yeah, that smooth. Visit virginmedia.com. New customers only. Virgin Fiber Areas, restrictions and credit check supply. No set up fee, online only, terms apply. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar. That's Karen Kilgariff. I can do puppetry. Oh wait, what's happening? Suddenly we have a third host with Karen's hand in a puppet shape. It's my hand that doesn't approve. He does look, he has something as he. His name is Egbert and he looks a little disappointed in us. And he's a little bit disappointed in us. Well, sorry. What does it mean that your own hand puppet is disappointed in you? It's not good. Psychologically. Little Catholic. Little Jewish. Little woman. Little woman. Being a woman. Little woman. Yeah. How's it going? How do you feel right now? Okay, my face is a little numb. Still I had some dental work. What'd you get? Well, I've been going to this adorable family neighborhood dentist for years. I'm not going to say what it is. And I love them and I go regularly. I'm really good at getting my teeth cleaned and I'm a good girl about it. And then I went to this place a couple months ago, like a month ago. A month ago by my house, it's like just closer and a little nicer. And he's like, you have so many fucking issues that this little mom and pop dental place have no technology and don't, didn't know about. So you're so fucked. No. I get a third opinion though. Why would they not? Because he's showing me photos of my fucking teeth and there's like holes and cracks in them. Like cracks in my teeth. And then you go back and check, it's actually a florist and you've been going to completely wrong places. I've just been on acid every time. I'm like, that's so weird. That was a ketamine dream, Georgia. You haven't been to the dentist in 10 fucking years. Ketamine dream, like you take ketamine and you're like, you know what I need to do? Go to the dentist. And I go to the dentist in my mind. I've been like, this ketamine doesn't work, but like. But I love this dentist and his wife and his daughter. Then you're suddenly like, why is there a family at this dentist's office? Yeah. Why is there a child working on my teeth? I don't think I trust her, but whatever. But whatever, if that's how you guys need to gentle. She does nothing wrong with me. So I guess something's wrong with me. It's covered. So I can get. I'm so proud of myself, you know. I'm very sorry about this news because you know that I know about dental issues. Yeah. But tough. No, it sucks. And it feels so old. I feel old. It makes me feel old. Yeah. Your teeth are just old now and they're only going to get older. And fall out and fall out and crunchier and breakier and you grind your teeth. Like it's only going to get worse. It's going to get worse. And I think about that every time I bite my cheek while I'm eating like a animal. Right. Which I do so often. It works. Eat your own cheek. Did we tell everyone on the recording podcast about my mom not having a tooth? I don't think we can. Okay. That's a big Easter egg for the future. Yeah, you're right. Can we leave that in? I think so. Probably. They can't get us. Come at us. They can't get us from here. Come at us, big dental. You fucking don't give a shit. We'll say it. We'll say it all. But you know what's hard about? Dentists remind me a lot of hair stylists where if you choose to leave for your own personal reasons and then you run into that person in real life. I ran into my old dentist and I clearly really hurt his feelings by bailing on him because it was a recommendation. My friend went there. I thought he was great. And you look amazing. Like it's all like running into an X and like having like blown up since you broke up with them. Check out these gigantic teeth. Shoppers, bitch. You shouldn't do it. Oh my God. But you know what? You're right about that too. And that's sometimes the hairdresser that you've been to for years just fucks up one time. And then so like you have to let you that you're done. Just can't do that. That's right. It's not the same thing when you're done. Just doesn't. You don't even get one with dentistry. No. You shouldn't. You get a bad bang and then you go to someone else. Every hairstylist I've stopped going to is purely because they're too far away and I would end up being late enough that it's fucking their business up. And I'd be like, it's immoral for me to continue going to this place. Question. Yes. Thought. Idea. Ponder are teeth the bangs of the mouth. Teeth are the bangs. No, I'm not going to question. Teeth are the bangs of the mouth. Teeth are the bangs of the mouth. If you have the money to adjust your teeth as much as you want to. Right. Oh, right. Well, they can be. I'm going to grow my front teeth out. Right, your front teeth out. Even longer. Show your face. You're blocking your beautiful face with all those teeth. You need to feature more of your cheeks using your big teeth. Am I high on dental drugs? And doesn't it work since this is podcasting? It's all been ketamine this whole time. And now if you don't mind, I cross pitch you a new podcast, which is on ketamine all the time. The new George Hart star. Great. It's just me and a guest fucking like passed out on a couch. In a Cahole. It's more of an animated show because you were just above your heads show what you're. Davie Gray. Caholeing about. Have you ever been in a Cahole? I've taken, I've taken therapeutic ketamine. I never took it at raves when I, yes. So yes. I mean. Yeah. Well, you know the feeling of being away on ketamine. Yeah. I don't think, I think a Cahole is like a bad thing, right? Like who you can't get out. I've been in it and been there and knew I was going to get out. And you got escorted out by a nice lady in a pants suit. That's right. Nice. Therapeutic ketamine is, yeah, I hit me up everyone. I'm fucking, I'm a big fan. Don't hit her up. Leave her alone. Well, just you have to turn into my podcast. Everything is ketamine. Just see what the hit up is in reference to. I wouldn't know. Okay. Should we get to work? This is our ketamine. We have a podcast network and it's called Exactly Right. And we're putting a ketamine podcast up on it. That's right. Get ready. Because we get to do whatever we fucking want. Get ready. Exactly right network. Here's some highlights. This week on Brief Recess, our newest, always on, hilarious, smart, interesting, cool podcast. Importantly. Michael and Melissa cover the latest chaos from Pete Hegceth's Department of Defense and the St. Patrick Day debauchery in New York. I want to see that. You've got to see it. And Trump's attempt to remove immigration protections for 350,000 Haitians in the U.S. This is an important podcast. I mean, here's the thing. It is two really compelling, fun people to listen to talk, talking about very important, timely things of today. And from the point of view of a paralegal, immigration lawyer, people who know what they're talking about. Who also happen to be like people you want to hang out with and get drinks with so bad. I got a text from Michael Foot this morning that said, you do want to learn mahjong, right? Yes. He's one of us, one of us. He's the best. Yeah. Okay. And over on Trust Me, Lolan Meaghan are joined by Dan Olson of the YouTube channel Folding Ideas. In part one of their conversation, Dan breaks down crypto and FTs, all the stuff you love, Georgia. And why they often start to look like belief systems more than financial markets. So interesting how everything is a cult. Yeah. And on that's messed up, Kara and Lisa revisit the episode Hot House and the disturbing real-life murderer of Kristen Costas. Plus, they chat with this week's guest star, Aya Cash. She's from The Boys and You're the Worst. God, I love The Boys. Oh, my God. That's like, if you like superheroes and you like soap operas and you like crazy shit. So good. Watch The Boys. Okay. Over on Dear Movies, I Love You, Million. We see dive into Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi's controversial new version of the romance classic Wuthering Heights. I'm not going to see it ever, but I'm going to read all about it because I love, I love when people get mad at things. I mean, and people have such strong opinions about this one. I can't wait to see it, but I'm absolutely going to see it from my home. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in March, Coroner, we're highlighting the Pearl Heart Mug and DeCal. It's designed by Murderino Sammy Rich, and it's from an episode where Pearl famously said, I shall never submit to be tried under the law that neither I nor my sex had a voice in making. And we all loved that. So we fucking put it out there so you can bring it to work and be passive aggressive to your boss. In honor of Women's History Month, we're highlighting the design. Grab yours at ExactlyWriteStore.com. Boom. Boom. Here's you at the water cooler. I'm holding the mug up by my face, conspicuously drinking nothing out of it. Someone comes up with this, what are you doing? Oh, it's interesting you should ask me. This is Pearl Heart and you go right into your spiel. Do it. We should actually release mugs about everything we want people to know about. It's interesting you should ask. Well, like, go fuck yourself, Meg. This is my favorite. Finally, stay tuned after this episode because there will be a brand new installation of honking hurrays featuring the real life driving of Miss Georgia Hearts. I remember what happened when we were in the car and I think I scared you a little a couple times. You are a Los Angeles native clearly. Yeah. That's what I learned from driving with you. And I'm from the part of California that's long open roads where nobody else drives. You know what my thing is? If in the apocalypse, in the zombie apocalypse, you want to be in my car and the like, we got to get the fuck out of here and everyone is running like I can get us out of here. You are tank girl. Yes. But it's just regular not like three o'clock traffic and that's why people get so upset with you. This is actually all an ad for beta blockers, which I take now before I get in the car, before it drives me anywhere. You're 100% right. See, your body doesn't know the difference between three o'clock on a Tuesday and zombie apocalypse. Nope. Your body's probably fine. My body doesn't know. My body has no idea what's going on. Just going like this all the time. Probably anything that happens. And I'm just like, can I talk about that for one second? Do you know what my therapist said today? And then I'll stop talking all the time. We'll see about that. My anavisis therapist said to me, I was talking about crying and how hard it is for me and she just showed me your story. I'm sorry. I didn't see it. And she, how I can't cry, it's really hard for me and I really actually want to. Did you know that tears contain the hormone cortisol? What? Roll the tape. You've said this? Yeah. On this show too, you. Oh, I wasn't listening for the last 10 years. Sorry. Oh, shit. Sorry. Listen, that's fine. And that's why you're so tired and feel good afterwards. Yes. So I have so much cortisol in my body because I have the, I'm like that cartoon where they have the like water up to their eyeballs. Yes. And it's so interesting because most women especially judge themselves for crying and how you're judging yourself for not crying. Right. Yes. It should be like, but you'd never judge yourself for not yawning or yawning. Wow. That is really the truth of it because every time you've seen me cry and we've all heard me cry on this podcast, I didn't know was coming. It's just that kind of thing is like, well, this has to get out right now. I want that. Yeah. You can have it. It's just like you have to stop thinking about it and just let it happen. But the first time it might, you might want to be at home for it. If more happens than just crying. That's what happened. And both of us were like, we should talk about this. Cause it was like, what's happening? It's hard. Doing good. If you weren't allowed to have feelings, then it's hard to have feelings. Thank you. That's so true. You're welcome. What if like from now on, I just don't stop crying cause you like told me I could give me the permission. Sorry, these are. They're perfect. I mean, these are the clothes. It is weird to sit across from you now in my career, in my adult career and look at you wearing the clothes that I watch people wear in high school. Your newest era of kind of mid 80s clothes. It's just like, oh, is it picture day? What did I forget? Like that's what it brings up in me all the time. I want to look like Justine Bateman became your like first grade teacher. You know, it's getting there. They told us it was a weather balloon, just a glitch. It was a drone. Now it's just AI, I guess. The explanation keeps changing, but the stories don't go away. Video is appearing to show UFOs flying through the air are real. My name is Payne Lindsay and this is High Strange. An investigative podcast about real encounters. Images of that rotating thing captured by US Navy aircraft. Credible people. We have clear things that we do not understand how they work. I talked to scientists, military witnesses, pilots and people who saw something they can't unsee. There was no other explanation for what we saw that day. I remembered those faces and they weren't human. This isn't a show about belief. It's about curiosity, skepticism and investigation into the unknown. High Strange is available now wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen for free on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We all love a good meal, but there's no feeling quite like cooking one. Whether it's everyone at yours for a Sunday roast or after school sausage and mash. Quick, simple, gone in minutes. One thing brings it all together. Ah, Bisto. The original gravy. Rich, smooth and unmistakable since 1908. When the gravy makes the dish, make the gravy. Ah, Bisto. Okay, this is a story I am surprised you haven't covered because it's got a lot of Karen, you know, on the pinball machine. Yeah. Got a lot of those for you. The bells and buzzers and whistles. It takes place in Italy. Oh. It's a disaster story. Oh, yep. It takes place in Italy. It's a disaster story. There are amazing survivors. Does it involve Mount Etna? No. Pompeii. No. Oh, if I did Pompeii. We do Pompeii as a crime. No. It's not funny. We're getting here. It's never funny. It's Friday the 13th in January of 2012, so not Pompeii. Okay. We're just off the western coast of Italy. Oh, God. So now I'm going to have to say these names and places. Just north of Civita Vecca. Civita Vecca. Hold on. We've got Liana Squilac. Right here. She's right here. She in the booth. So let's hear the correct pronunciation if she has it. Civita Vecca. Civita Vecca. Like I wouldn't have gotten that. Thank you, Liana. Lead in all of these. How did you pronounce it? Civita. It could also be Svecchia Vecchia. Okay. Well, I'm not going to ever say it again. The busy cruise port that serves Rome. Oh. You know Rome. We're on a luxurious cruise ship with about 4,200 people on board. And what's about to happen is going to be one of the worst maritime disasters in recent history, which led to the tragic death of 32 people. Tell them what you just said with your hands. I was turning both hands to the side to somehow nonverbally express to Georgia this, that one about the big cruise ship that basically sinks. That is right. This is the story of the ill-fated final journey of the Costa Concordia. Wow. And the main sources for the story is a Vanity Fair article by Brian Burrow and Josephine McKenna, which is really in depth. And then a two-episode discovery special called Costa Concordia, Why She Sank. Vincent and I watched it this week. It was one of those ones where like sometimes I'm like, hey, I have to watch this documentary for the show. Do you want me to wait for you or not? And if it's like a horrible murder, he's like, go, why don't you go ahead? Go ahead. But this one, he was like, yeah, I'll watch that. So we watched it. It's good. It's not as complete as you'd want, but it's good. I'm surprised there isn't a new one that's like a bigger story about it because it's just, I didn't know anything about that. I didn't know people died. I feel like I don't know anything about it either except for the final visual, which was this gigantic cruise ship like in a bay essentially, right? Yeah. It's basically a fucking enormous like luxury cruise ship on its fucking side where it's not supposed to be. In the foreground, there's a lighthouse to give you perspective of how gigantic this ship is. I read that it was like if you were next to a 17 story building, that's how tall it was. That's what gets me nauseous. How many stories? Yeah. Okay. Too big. Too big. The rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. That's right. The Concordia belongs to the Italian cruise line Costa, so Costa Concordia, which is a theory of Carnival Cruises whose headquarters are in Miami. We were like, it was like a lot of the succession in the beginning of the TV show succession when there was like a whole cruise ship thing was like, oh, like someone high up owns this ship. The Concordia has been in circulation since 2005 when its construction was completed in Genoa and the ship cost 400 million to build, which in today's money. 600 million? 629 million. 580 to 612 million. 612 million. 612 million. That's what I would do if I were ever on a fucking wheel or what's the one called? Price is right. Oh, price is right. I would say a weird, because I can't do numbers. Yes. I'd say that in front of fucking. I would just, my mouth would say whatever my brain served up. 612 million. 612 million. 666 basically. Oh, yeah. 666 million dollars. That's how much today it would cost inflation. Okay. And of course the devil so it cost your soul. That went away a long time ago. Oh, the devil? My soul. You should have told me. Okay. And it's made in voyage the champagne bottle speaking of superstitions and bad things that had been smashed against this hull had failed to break, which is considered a bad omen, but it's like, shut the fuck up. At the time, no, sorry. Among boat people. Right, exactly. At the time, which what are you going to do? Like, oh, guess this one's out of commission. It's nothing. Yeah. Turn the whole 666 million dollar project in because this bottle didn't break. Exactly. I'm sure they haven't broken before. I think what did damn it more than anything else, and they got to stop doing this, is they called it unsinkable. You got to stop fucking calling things unsinkable. It doesn't work. This is not a manifestation situation. Just do your best and do some cruises. Yeah, it's great. Where's the humility? Truly. Because that's what they said about the fucking Titanic. That's right. Shut up. You didn't learn your lesson? Okay. Why am I mad at these people? At the time. It's not the same company. At the time it had been Italy's largest cruise ship and one of the largest cruise ships period ever. And the year since cruise ships have only gotten bigger and bigger, which is bananas. Yeah. In 2012, when our story takes place, the ship is only seven years old and there are still just a few ships with significantly higher passenger capacities than the Concordia. Today, some of the largest cruise ships have passenger capacities of 7,600 people and carry around 10,000 people total, including the crew. That's a small town. That's a small town. On this night, so it's nighttime. It's January. It's just a little chilly. Most of the ship's passengers are just beginning their trip. They just boarded at Chita-Veca. Chita-Veca. Leanna. She's probably working. Chita-Veca. Chita-Veca. They boarded at Chita-Veca. Most of them, they're starting their week-long cruise around the Mediterranean. They stopped at, Allie did this on purpose. They stopped at Savonia, Marseille, Barcelona. Nice. Mallorca and Sardinia and Sicily. Those ones were great. They did that. Yeah. They got the send-off and it's really exciting and they're just getting go in that evening. Among the ship's passengers on this particular voyage are a large contingent of hairdressers. Okay. Like, how fun would that be? Amazing. Hairdressers, they're most fun people. They know where to go. They know what to order. They know how to do small talk. That's right. Like, the best of them. They have so much coke. I'm just asking. Sorry. No. This is a hairdresser episode. So the reason there are a bunch of hairdressers there are they're competing on an Italian reality TV show, which is shooting on the cruise. So there's just like a big amount of fucking... I can throw to the clip. I want to see that show. I know. Oh, no. It didn't go great. Oh, okay. Then there are lots of vacations, of course, mostly European and particularly Italian, but there are also about 100 Americans. The Concordia has 1,500 cabins, six restaurants, 13 bars, four swimming pools, a casino and a disco. So we have the resort we just went to in the Bahamas, Bahamar, but on a fucking 17 story ship in the middle of the ocean. Hell, yes. We could have been on a ship while we were there and not known it because it was just condensed. We never left. Yeah. We were all walking around. Like the one day I went and I got to get a massage at the spa, trying to find my way back was wild, but it all was like the same. And I was like, this is so weird because I know this isn't that big, but I cannot find the front of this building. Yeah. Anyway. But then also, hey, you're in the middle of the fucking ocean. Yeah. That part I don't like. No, no. And yeah. And that's, you learn about that by the ground becoming completely sideways as we know. Right. And your parents are big cruise heads. My parents were the people in the late 50s, early 60s who were like, I don't have a career. I'm going to go work on the ships. So my mom got her nursing license and then went and worked on it. And my dad was a purser because he was driving chicken delivery trucks. That's so cool. Like that, I would go on a, I would get a job on a cruise. Right. Like in this documentary, they interview this woman who is a dancer in the like shows on the cruise. Yes. And it's like, what an amazing career. What an amazing time in your life. If you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and you're just like, I just, it's like being a flight attendant almost where you just like get to satisfy this need that you want to be places and to be around people. You can meet all different kinds of people. And, but here's the difference I would say for this is my dad was a purser and then later on he moonlit while he was a fireman and worked at the pursers union. So to think about the fact that when my dad and mom worked there, they were unionized jobs and they of course are not anymore. And that's the real problem with a lot of people these days where they're like, I work 49 hours in a row or whatever. The centerpiece of the ship is a nine story atrium, you know, that looks like the Emerald City. Think what's that hotel downtown the Bonaventure Hotel that's got like indoor elevators that like look down on this atrium. It's like that, but it's fucking Emerald Green. Like it's the Wizard of Oz. Oh shit. I don't think I can show you. Show me something green. What's that thing? That's a green, a green. Here's something green. Oh, an emergency. Yeah. Don't have it. That's okay. That's a great problem. Stop asking me. Okay. There's Muster Station. That's great. Oh, happy family. What is that? Teenage daughter who doesn't want to be there. Middle child son who's just like, who's actually really friendly and doing a lot of karaoke. Okay. Youngest daughter who has not gotten out of the pool for five days straight. Oh my God. Great. What a dream. Some people think it's a little tacky though, but it's, you know, got that old Vegas kind of, you know, it's a cruise ship. Yeah. No one's there to be chic in fashion week. Right. It's not the idea. This isn't Viking Cruises. This isn't a Viking cruise. River cruise. Hey Viking River cruise. Hey Viking River cruise. I've always wanted to go to Egypt. Can we please get on the river? We would like to see the Nile. Okay. At the helm of the Concordia is a captain named Francesco Schiettino. And if you remember the story at all, you know that he's going to make a lot of mistakes tonight. Yeah. He's 51 years old, very tan. He unbuttons his thing. You know. He's the rare pale Italian man who works on a boat. Somehow he's been wearing 75 sunblock and he's just real pale. He's very experienced, but he's known for being outgoing and exuberant. And like it's kind of, there's like a showmanship to being a captain that you have to ship this size. They come out the first night and everyone applauds you and they do a whole thing. You know, it's like a big deal to be the captain of this ship. And almost, yeah, I can show you a photo of him that we have to just, we can't, I can't show you on the screen, but you can look at it on our Instagram of what he looks like. And I just think it's important to tell you. Like Richard Geer. Italian style. Here's the thing. I think that Italian men automatically unbutton to the third button. And if they try to keep it at the second button, it just pops off and it goes straight to the third button. They don't make them. He's a captain of a ship. And he looks like he just got up from a beach chair. It's just hair showing. What did you need a drink or something? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. There were quite a few like attractive, oh, as played by George Clooney in this documentary. Yeah. It's pretty wild. Yeah. Those people. Okay. All right. Stop it. Get serious. Okay. So he's a well regarded captain just north of Siavićia is a small channel between. Okay. So basically they're going out into this channel that sticks out from the Tuscan coast. It goes between the coast and an island called Isola de Gileo. So just basically called Gileo is the island G-I-G-L-I-O. It's very small little island just off the coast. And it's all male sex workers that live there. Gileo. Yes. So there's a thing called a sail by salute where you'd fly by. Yeah. It's basically like to show off the boat to this small little community on the ocean. It's kind of a regular non sanctioned button, but done thing in the captaining business just to kind of give everyone a little what's up. Okay. And it's unclear whose idea this originally is, but the captain Francesco Scatino decided he's going to perform a sail by salute of the island of Gileo. It's kind of to show off the ships to the locals, you know, which I think they get a kick out of too. Maybe. Maybe the first time. Right. Like shut up. They're, you know, oh my God. They're like, we're an island. We see ships all the time. Right. But this is the biggest fucking ship ever. So like it's kind of a big deal. Oh, I see. And the lights are all lit. It's evening. Home built. Right. When the ship is approaching the island to do this little drive by wave, Scatino isn't personally at the controls at the moment until the ship gets within about two miles of the island. So he had been having dinner near the bridge with a beautiful blonde woman who is not his wife. Listen, sometimes junior captains are attractive women. Okay. She's not his wife. She's not on the like, on the manifesto. Like she's not even like, she's not supposed to be there. Bless her heart. She's a dancer. She's 26. He's 51. Like she's not a passenger and she's not an employee. Yeah. It's his mistress that he brought on for this little part of the trip. It seems like, yeah. So like most people think has no bearing on the story at all. And she kind of got tarnished because of it when really it was just like, but also he just went to dinner. He was probably drinking too. You would imagine. Right. Absolutely. And also it's like Italy. I don't think anyone's surprised by having a mistress or drinks at dinner. Yeah. Let's not be. I'm not going to say her name because she hasn't. Good. Okay. So. And don't say his name because he's just a man. I just started defending him. Francesco. Okay. I love him. Okay. A retired captain from the Costa line whose name is Mario Palombo lives on Gileo and Scatino talks to him briefly on the phone while the ship is en route to perform this little like, Hey, we're going to do it. And Scatino mentions his plan and he wants to pass within less than a mile of the island and this Costa line captain captain Palombo. He points out that it's winter. There won't be a lot of people to see the ship anyways. It's not tourist season. Like why don't you find it's rocky shoreline. It's not necessary. There's not much reward. How about you don't do that? Basically he just said, say hi and stay away. Yeah. Like he knew it was a bad idea. Was it the dancers home island? Like this is where I'm from and I'm going to go buy a show. That would be cute. It's not. I think it was like, I don't understand. It's someone else's. It was not necessary at all in any way. At that moment when he's like, say hi and get away, the phone goes dead and it sounds like Scatino was already about a half mile from the island because that was likely the moment that they saw the rocks. The problem is that Scatino had consulted his radar and charts, but at this point he's mostly navigating by site and there's a fucking rock near the island. Even I. Not an Italian know that. Who only go on luxurious river cruises know that. He's going about 15 knots, which we'd be considered very fast for navigating so close to the shore. He sees an outcropping of rocks and orders a turn to avoid limb and then misses a much closer large rock. Basically there's a scramble and he yells at the wrong thing and everyone on board who's driving don't get a clear message of what to do from the captain. The rock slams into the port left side of the ship. By the time they see it, it's too late and they slam into it. I was just going to say if the ship is a half a mile away, but it's this gigantic thing in the water, it's like then you're there immediately. It's 9.42 PM when this happens and this being Italy means that many of the ship's passengers are at dinner at this moment because they dinner late. You know. Yes, absolutely. Many room passengers feel a series of big thumps and immediately after the ship is at a tilt. They all know something happened. There's no way to ignore it. Plates go flying and smashing to the ground. So embarrassing. Remember when our table collapsed when we were in Hawaii and that we didn't even do anything and it was like the most humiliating thing that happened to any of us. Yeah. It was only us. Oh God, that was so embarrassing. It was such a quiet buffet breakfast. It was just like they had just set up an extra tables because they knew like there was a lot of buffet brunch people and ours was just like a fucking like conference room table and someone kicked the thing that held everything together and it. Yeah, but just collapsed. Collapse. Kind of just like. No, it was not Liz's fault. I wasn't. She kicked it, but it was not her fault that she kicked something and everything collapsed. The tables couldn't handle everybody having more than one beverage, which to me is what it felt like. Plates go flying. The grand piano that's being played at the moment detaches from its safety tethers and rolls across the room all over the ship. People are seriously injured in falls. One musician, the piano player in the documentary says that he sees people bloodied and holding their own teeth in their hands. So it happened quickly. Yes, exactly. Shit. And so there's different levels of people getting hurt and doesn't seem like anyone lost their life or anything like that. Yeah. Amelia Bland is a 21 year old British student and she's on board visiting her boyfriend, who's one of the ship's engineers, but she has her own cabin and at the moment they're in the cabin watching a movie when they hear this huge and feel this huge hit. And it's so hard that the TV falls off the wall. So they got in the hallway and start climbing towards some of the higher decks when the ship loses power. So all the lights go out, big fucking crash and the lights go out. The emergency lights come on and Claudio, Amelia's boyfriend tells her to stay put in one of these main areas and he's going to go see what's wrong. So the announcement starts playing saying the ship is experiencing an electrical problem. And it's really weird because it's 2012. So only a few people have video of this. Like nowadays you'd get every fucking angle, right? 2012, there's like just a few clips that they play over and over again, which is, I think, so interesting. Yeah. Because only a couple of people were kind of there and ready. Right. And like had that capability on their phones. They says there's an electrical problem. Everyone should remain calm. There's and everything will be fine shortly. Just don't freak out. At one point, another announcement encouraged guests to return to their cabins. And then right around this time, Amelia's boyfriend, Claudio returns and she says he looks ashen and tells her that several of the ship's watertight compartments have flooded. So it's not a fucking electrical problem. Yeah. Meanwhile, the ship's hotel director, a 56 year old man named Mariko John-Prodroni, is on the bridge. And you don't think about the fact that there's a captain on the ship, but there's also a hotel director because essentially you also need someone who knows how to run a hotel. Yeah. He's confused as to why the captain hasn't declared a general emergency yet. He's like, let's get off this ship if we hit something immediately. The captain's catino, he does contact Costa's operation center and tells them that the ship has had two watertight compartments flooded, but the actual number is between three and five by now. The whole time he downplays and doesn't react fast enough. And really, it seems like that's what causes loss of life in my opinion. That's tough. It's so embarrassing. Right. He made a really embarrassing mistake. Immediately, like stupid mistakes. Stupid mistake, like why did you even do it? And he's probably showing off maybe for the dancer, maybe just in general. Maybe for whoever's on that island. Totally. And I think the idea of just deciding to evacuate all these people is a big decision that he doesn't want to make until he's sure about it. So he holds back and that costs life. Yes. He's probably thinking if we could never get that close. And I want to make sure this doesn't go up into a big, it doesn't turn into a bigger thing. Like let's just see how bad it is before we start panicking. Yeah. We've all been there. Like he wanted to admit to what happens for a very long time. Same. Who does admit anything? Who among us admits fucking shit? I crashed a ship. Good luck. See, it's not that hard. I crashed a ship. It's not that hard. The ship can possibly stay afloat with two compartments flooded. You've seen this from Titanic or like the bottom thingies, but not with any more than that. And he does not call the Coast Guard. At least 20 minutes after impact, the Coast Guard first makes contact with the ship because a woman on the ship called her fucking mom from the ship and is like, we hit something. Please call the Coast Guard and tell us like what's going on. And so a police precinct elsewhere in Italy are the ones who take the call and tell them what happened. And they call the local police who contact the Coast Guard. So when the Coast Guard contacts Catino right around 10 p.m. they're like, hey, we got this call. He says that the ship is experiencing a blackout and that's all that's going on right now. So another, another chance to, hey, it's no big deal. It's a fucking blackout. Yeah. He didn't say that it was a crash or that the ship is taking on water and the Coast Guard asks if Catino needs assistance and he says no. And it's just unclear why he does that. Is it? Is it? We know men. There's really nothing like the feeling of making a dumb mistake, even over a bad mistake. Right. Because if it was overtly a bad mistake, it would just be like start the emergency services now. Yeah. But he himself is in a world where he thinks he can fix his dumb mistake. Yeah. It's a dumb mistake that you're like, that's not me. I would never do something like that. And so I'm just going to like pretend it's not happening. Because you were saying he was considered a good captain and like. Good, but like a little bit into the limelight of it all. So I think some people weren't surprised. You get into cruise ships for the limelight. You know. Yeah. It's my family business. A-list cruise ships. Scatino likely realizes or acknowledges shortly after this conversation that he's going to have to evacuate the ship. And it's safer to do so on land rather than in open water because now the ship, it hit the fucking rock and it's now veering out towards open water. So he's freaking out about that. And he's like, okay, people don't know if he did it on purpose or not. But basically he's able to beach the ship onto a bunch of other rocks and hit those rocks and remain there. So he's like basically right next to the island. So he's closer. There's photos of like the ship that looks like on rocks and people like, oh, that's a huge rock. How did he not see it? That's not the rock he hit. So yeah. That was the rock that was preventing him from being pulled out to sea. Right. Like it held them there. Okay. While this is going on, the passengers have just been left in the dark and literally and figuratively and there have been no announcements about the reality of the situation. Although a lot of people clearly are freaking out, getting life jackets. The Coast Guard gets in contact another time asking for an update. And this time the Concordia's crew admit that the ship is taking on water. The Coast Guard starts sending boats and helicopters in the direction of Jilio. But they estimate that Skatino's unwillingness to admit the severity of the problem costs them about 45 minutes. It's only about 1040, a full hour after the impact that Captain Skatino declares a general emergency. Most experts and even non-experts who just know a thing or two about ships agree that they shouldn't have been done immediately after impact. Yeah. But it just made, sorry, because I am an expert in Italian men. It makes me think of this driver we had one time when me and Adrian and Janet were in Italy and he was driving us to Cinque Terre, which is like mountainous, like literally like this. Scary. And he was driving us in this kind of like a minivan while texting. And it was a stick shift. He was loving scaring the shit out of you guys. We were, because we were sitting in our own individual roads in this thing and I was literally staring out the window like, I've had a beautiful life. I'm very grateful for everything I've gotten to do. And when we all got out, Adrian goes, I just made peace with the God I know. And I was like, that's what I was doing. Because it was that fucking narrow and scary. Yeah. So I- I thought he was hoping you guys would say something. Yeah, exactly. We were like, please, sir. Where he's like, I got it. But I do think that is culturally, and that's such a generalization like, what do I know? That's one experience. But I do see that, or I can see that. Yeah. I got it handled is the thing that everybody, no matter the gender, wants to always be able to say. Yeah. Men, mostly men. That makes sense. Okay. So on the island of Gileo, a hotel manager who's also the island's deputy mayor, which is like, I fucking need to go there and live there immediately. For real. Name Mario Pellegrini. Here's that there's a ship in trouble in the channel on the other side of the island. And so he's, he hops in his car and starts calling other members of the island's local council. They're like, someone's going on this ship that tried to wave at us. It was now like- Up on the rock. Up on us. Yeah. As he makes his way around the mountain in the middle of the island, and it's, you know, it's night, of course, he gets a clear view into the harbor and sees the massive fucking cruise ship like beached on rocks off the shore. So big. That's not what I was expecting. I mean, the ship's like the size of the island. Yeah. Remember when I talked about the Titanic, I think, and I said that there were 500 life rafts instead of 50 or whatever, that it was just some like typo. Well, the life rafts will come into play as well. So put those in your mind. Don't let it go. Here we go. Moving on. And then the other thing that happened is when they run aground purposely, supposedly on those rocks, they drop the anchors. So they'll stay there and the crew improperly dropped the anchors, letting out way too much chain. And that's why it started to list to one side because they just cut open the side. And so it did that. So I think that it seems to me totally unprofessional that like the crew didn't know what the fuck was going on either because the captain wasn't telling them what to do and what was happening and everyone kind of panicked and made mistakes. We must communicate. Yes. That's just, that's all there is to it. Right. Trickle down stupidity. That's just the thing. So had they created the right amount of tension, they likely would have been able to keep the boat more upright and the boat turning on its side is really where the problems arise. And so and so what happens is that the starboard side of the ship starts tilting down at a severe angle and very quickly the lowest level of the life boats are submerged into the water, rendering them unusable. And at the same time, all of the life boats on the port side of the ship, the side that's up in the air are also extremely difficult to launch into the water because so the ships on its side now, the boats are here. Normally the boats would come, the life boats would come out and down, but if they're on its side, there's no coming out. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so people are fighting each other to get on these life boats. I mean, just you see humanity and it's ugly. Yeah. People are pushing and shoving to get each other out of the way, trying to get on the few life boats that are launching and the crew members who are launching the life boats seem to be doing so without any guidance from the chain of command. People are just kind of doing their own thing. It's like free for all. Yeah. Also, because this had been the first night of the voyage, the passengers had not yet had their mandatory safety training because I guess the next day they're like, everyone has to sit down and fucking watch this video. It's like when you're on a plane and they do the video, the yeah, and nobody pays attention to it. Right. Right. There's a reason they do it first. Right. I thought you were going to say no one had sat down and eaten dinner. And I was just like, that's sad. So everyone was hungry. Everyone's in a bad mood. They're hungry. So it's mayhem. This is actually the like orderly better stage of the evacuation because the Concordia is so close to the port that the life boats are able to shuttle people back and forth. Like it is very close. People start jumping into the water and swimming to the island. Do they make it? A lot of people make it. A lot of it's like there was the story of like a 70 something year old woman who used to be a swimmer who made it. And it made me go like, you got to get your ass in fucking shape. Yes. Like if I jumped out of a fucking out of this right now and swam, would I make it? I don't think so. Honestly. Like, and I feel young. Yes. I should be able to make it. So that's my, it's kind of has like invigorated me to be like, take care of yourself. To be an ocean swimmer. I would love it if you start driving two hours every day so you can go swim under the Santa Monica Pier. Yes, my thing. I have like the gear and everything punching sharp. It's just as bestos in the water. Yeah. Yeah. So people are making it. And also they have life jackets too, which is very helpful. But even still the water is, it's January. The water is fucking freezing. It's like a 40 minutes tops that you have available in the water before hypothermia sets in. Yeah. So it's not a great option. If you're jumping from one of the higher levels, remember 17 stories high. Like you can't jump off and swim unless you're close to the water and close to the island and swimmer and all these things. And the idea that people are just making independent decisions for themselves is a real sign of the chaos. Right. A 70 year old lady went over and was like, you know what, fuck this. I'm going. Like most people will be like, I'm going to wait and see what the captain says because they're obviously going to tell us what to do. And I don't want to be dramatic and jump into the water. We never, women never want to be dramatic and overreact, but like, just like get your blade hands ready. Totally. I'm a, you know, I am a strong backstroke swimmer. Oh yeah. So that just gets. Just jump in backwards. It'd be fine. That crab walk out of there. So the water is about 51 degrees Fahrenheit. And so hypothermia, that's how some of the people die. And in fact, the rescuers do pull an unconscious French man in his sixties from the water and he becomes the first recorded person to be killed in the Costa Concordia disaster when they pull him out of the water. That's really horrible because the idea of this where, especially the way, the way it looked on the news, which is like, oh, it looked like someone just made a dumb mistake and like, it looked like the boat got a flat tire. Totally. The idea that people died because of that mistake is horrible. And he had given his wife his life jacket because she couldn't swim. And so she made it and he was like, she was like, are you with me? And he's like, you're good. Keep going. And then I know, like the stories are the fucking people who died. It's just like heartbreaking, obviously. Okay. So the Coast Guard Supervisor in charge of the rescue operation is a man named Gregorio DeFalco and he is fucking hot. He's George Clooney. Oh. Italian George Clooney. Is George Clooney Italian? He lived in Italy. I want to argue George Clooney's Irish. Okay. You can have him. You can have him. Okay. So this guy, Gregorio DeFalco, can't get in touch with anyone on the ship's bridge. During an emergency, this is where you would expect to find the captain. And if you remember the Titanic, that's where the captain stays until the very end. You go down with your ship, right? Like I don't even know anything about ships, rag. And I know you stay on as the captain to the end. You're there until the bidder on. DeFalco is only getting radio silence. So finally at about 1240 a.m., he gets a hold of Scatino by calling the captain's cell phone. So he's down on the bridge. He finally calls the cell phone. And this guy is a Coast Guard Supervisor. So like, you gotta be badass. Like you've gotta be. Yeah. It's like being in the, what's that one? Navy Seals? Yeah. I feel like you must be. Yes. It's Navy-ish, but there's something about the Coast Guard that's very like, we're the guys that go in when the emergency kicks off. Right. We're not going into war. We're going into fucking help people. Yes. Yeah. Right. A war against bad swimming. Right. And we're Italian. A war against bad swimming. Don't forget. And DeFalco is absolutely stunned when he gets a hold of Scatino that he is on a lifeboat already. Oh, that's right. This guy got ripped apart. He did. We'll get into it. Okay. Their conversation, which is recorded, becomes infamous. I was like, we should play it and hear the whole thing. I'm like, it's an Italian. I forgot it's an Italian. What a dream. So basically, DeFalco just tears Scatino apart. And Scatino is just like, oh, but like making excuses. He says he tripped and fell onto the lifeboat and that's why he's on it. But there's like a clear video of him getting onto it. It's not pretty. It's a really, he did himself no favors. He made a big fucking mistake and he could have not write it, but like owned it and taken care of business and done what was right. It sounds like it was a big shameful event for Italians who are like, that's not what we do. This isn't who we are. And so they wanted to punish him for that. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I, as the cultural attaché to Italy for America, they are very, things are done a certain way. They're very traditional. They're very, you do not have cappuccino afternoon. Right. There are rules and regulations to just being part of that kind of like casual culture, in my opinion, that's all opinion. But so that makes perfect sense that they're like, you have shamed this great nation. Totally. Like you made a mistake and then you fucking double down. You can hear it and they'll do closed captioning for it and like can understand. But he's just basically like says, fuck, what the fuck are you doing at him? Like he's just like, what are you know, this guy, DeFalco is very aware of like how bad this is. And he's not on the ship. All that on top of he's gone. Right. So shortly after this conversation, he doesn't get off the ship like DeFalco orders him to do it because shortly after the call, he's seen on land in the Agilio Harbor among the thousands of stranded passengers who have escaped the ship. So people are flooding off and they see the captain on land when there's like hundreds of people still on the ship. The town's chief of police goes to speak with him and also Tina will say is quote, those cliffs weren't there. They were not on the maps. End quote. He's immediately blaming. Yeah. Cliffs. That sounds boozy to me. Yeah. And so the police chief says quote, I saw someone who still hadn't realized what happened. Someone who most likely didn't want to accept the reality of things. End quote. Full denial. Yeah. By this point around 1 a.m. every working life boat has been launched and some are circling back and getting more, but around a thousand people are still on the ship, which is now essentially lying on its starboard side. So if you're still trapped in the ship, which many people are, the walls are now the floor and ceiling and you know what I mean? And the floors are now the walls and like any long hallway is now like a well because everything is fucking. It's one big Lionel Richie video in the worst way possible. The people left on the ship are congregated in several different areas because they still don't know what to do. No one has told them go to this place to get rescued still, right? Cause the guy's gone. Who's supposed to fucking tell them. And it's still nighttime emergency lights. Like it's not. Yeah. It's one of the morning. Some people are severely injured because of all these things happening and mostly just trying to stay upright on the ship that's flipped on its side. Eventually a crew member finds a long rope ladder and it's dangled along the port side of the ship. Now facing up at the sky, they basically have to scale down the side of the ship into the water. To get like on to a boat, like to get rescued. Yeah. So the ship's on its side and you can see there's like a night vision from the hell because there's like helicopters in Chicago. You can see like just a line of like ants. It looks like trailing down the side of this enormous ship and there's children, you know, and elderly people. I mean, and also it's like, so it's a rope ladder, but you have to have the physical strength. Exactly. Can you, could you do it right now? I think I could do that. I could do that, but not the swim portion of the triathlon. Couldn't do both. No. But also I would be afraid halfway down when I'm like really at the dankliest part, my arms are like, we're not doing this anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's not like I do. Adrenaline. She's a real friend. Good one. You know? Let's get her going more often. Get that cortisone and adrenaline going every morning. That's all we can do. People have to drop into the rescue boats. Maria Pellegrini, the Gileo deputy mayor and a crew member named Simone Canessa coordinate this rope ladder rescue and eventually go into the hallways to help get more people out. So even though the captain's doing absolutely nothing, there are people on board that work there and don't work there that are being heroes. Amazing. Yeah. They find an aluminum ladder and then they use that to get people up and out of the hallways to the balcony so that they can get out of the ship as well on the rope ladder and climb down. But some people are still trapped in the less accessible areas awaiting rescuers and the hotel director that I had told you about who's like the captain of the hotel, part of the adventure named Manarico Gipegrini goes back into the ship's hallway to try to get them to try to save more people and comfort them until rescuers come. Like he's not abandoning his ship hotel. But the whole night everyone has been saying that they saw his face. He was helping people get off the ship. He was helping get navigate the chaos and trying to get them to safety. He was in it. But on his way through the sideways corridor, he's knocking on doors, which are now the floor, trying to find people who may still be trapped. And then he accidentally steps on one of those doors. It opens up under him and he falls through the door into the room below him because it's now on the side. He hits a wall, splashes into the water and he realizes he's trapped in the ship's sideways dining room and he's broken his leg in the fall. It's spilling with water, with freezing fucking water. Actively. Yeah. The water's rising slowly. He hoists himself onto a top of a metal table and waits to be rescued with a broken leg. Broken leg. All over the ship, people are clamoring out alongside of the boat, which is now on the top trying to get down to the rescuers. Helicopters are circling and pointing rescuers to where they can see people. It must be the weirdest thing to be trying to escape a boat, a ship, and there are people coming onto it from the island. At that point, I'd be like, okay, then I think we're going to make it. Are people repelling down from a helicopter? No, they're like riding the lifeboats back to the ship and climbing aboard to go look for survivors. Then it does come down to fitness. It does. As the sun rises, about 100 people are still unaccounted for and rescuers are prowling this enormous boat. They're breaking windows and cabins to see if anyone's in there and trying to get people out and they're looking for additional survivors. They find one couple still in their cabin. They had slept through the initial crash and then become trapped, which sounds like me and Vince, like for sure. Ask somebody what's going on. Right. You know that evening nap we like to take on a vacation. We'll be at dinner later. Yeah. But when you wake up, it's 9.30 and you're like, is it 9.30 in the morning? Right. And everything feels bad. Down in the dining room, Manrico, the hotel captain, director who had fallen, he can hear the rescuers, but he's so far down that he can't get their attention. He spent the entire night on that tabletop drinking from a can of Coke that went floating by, which happened in another one of your stories in the hometown recently. The jet ski, the dad that's trapped at sea. Oh yeah. So gross. And then from a bottle that goes floating by of cognac, which thank God. Thank you. And then he finds two pots to bang together to try to get the attention. He starts to believe he's going to die in that flooded dining room. Finally, he sees bubbles around him and fucking rescue divers surface from underneath him. Holy shit. It's been hours. Arrivederci, they say. No, no, no. Buon giorno. Buon giorno. Buon se. Buon sera. Leon is nodding. Oh, great. He's saved. He's pulled out of the water and airlifted to a hospital and he is the last survivor pulled off of the boat. The captain of the hotel. Yeah. In all 32 people die in the disaster. That's so many. And the youngest victim, a five year old dies in her father's arms. No. I know. And in a fall that had been similar to Menricos, Diana and Williams are Lottie. And they had been trying to reach lifeboats on the starboard side of the boat when they fell into a flooded area and drowned, which is like so sad. It's so sad. The documentary, the divers talk about finding the daughter in the arms of the father and just how like you just can't move past that. No. You know. The event becomes an international outrage and the ship lying on its side next to Gileo becomes a huge symbol for the utter outrageousness of this disaster, which we all saw. The ship settles even more into the water and the 60 meter gash in its hull becomes visible. Very quickly, public opinion coalesces against Francesco Scatino. This is in many ways fair, I think, right? People are upset with him. But some people point out that the crew on the bridge had ultimately contacted Costa's headquarters after the crash and they too had not raised alarms quickly enough, which is like. It's everybody's fault. Yeah. But it's like they're the underlings kind of thing. Yeah. They're the underlings and they're not the ones who are like, let's drive by this island. It'll be so bad. Maybe they don't know how bad it is either because they're not being told who knows. But some people think that Costa, the company, is happy to help throw Scatino under the bus to avoid any blame at the corporate level. So it does become a thing about this is the one guy that fucked up everything. Nobody else is responsible kind of a thing. Yeah. The buck stops with this guy. If you want to sue anybody, you're going to sue this guy. Exactly. Which is also like, well, did he have the training? Did he have, you know? Always going to go above you in some way. So much is made over the fact that Scatino's mistress was on board and not on any of the official manifests, but it ultimately doesn't seem like her presence made much of a material difference in the case. And there's still some debate about where the initial idea to do the sale by salute came from. But in court, Scatino's. Those two things conflict with each other though. Yeah. I think it's someone else who said to do the drive by. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's just being lumped all together and then details of this. And then like Italian tabloid magazines, like they fucking love this cute blonde girl dancer who was the mistress. Okay. I mean, I should have nothing to do with it. So certainly the choice to do the salute and its deeply flawed execution were ultimately Scatino's responsibility to this day as cruise ships swell in size. The Costa Concordia is our only real example of a full evacuation at sea, albeit very close to land, and it didn't go particularly well. So it's a big media moment. The Concordia lies on its side next to Gileo for a full year and a half while a delicate salvage effort takes place. It takes that long to figure out how to write the ship and tow it away without causing an environmental catastrophe by spilling all the fuel on board. So it just sits there. I mean, what a sight for those people on that island, right? An island in an area that's 100% tourist. It's all foreign about the tourism and the money you make the tourism. And so quiet otherwise. It's finally refloated and brought to Genoa in September of 2013. It's just like weird moment. The whole effort cost $799 million to get the fuck out of there twice as much as the ship had cost to build in the first place. Scatino is ultimately charged with manslaughter causing a shipwreck and abandoning the scene of an accident. The case goes to trial in 2015. He's found guilty and is currently serving a 16 year sentence. Wow. He's the only person to serve a prison sentence for this. Manrico, the hotel director who had tried all night to save people before falling into a flooded dining room is among four other Costa employees who are also charged for not doing enough to prevent the disaster. It doesn't sit well. No. Right? He's a plea bargain and does not serve time. And he says, quote, my conscience is clear. And he's in this documentary and he's like, I did everything I could. And there were other survivors, passengers who were like, he was the person who saved me. Yeah. Was doing something. Exactly. Someday he's going to be redeemed, it feels like. But until then, that is the story of the Costa Concordia disaster. Wow. Truly, I always, I remember watching that on the news. I remember seeing it and having it be a thing that just kept coming back because it was just the ship sitting there and all those. We want to say it, yeah. But for one second, can we just talk about the fact that that captain got off the ship? He refused to get back on. Women and children last. Yeah. And then stood around in the harbor watching. Yeah. Like, to me, that's not telling me that that's a person that was got off and was going to run away. But he also grabbed some of his bag, like stuff, you know, like what you're just not supposed to do when you're abandoning a ship, you know. Yeah. Abandoned is not supposed to come into your vocabulary when you're the captain. Right. Wow. What a story. Yeah. That was good. Thank you. Yeah. That was entertaining. People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer. But in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire of faith and fear. From exactly right and a Donde Media, this is Two Faced, John of God. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a good idea to go back over things that we thought were one way because of the way the news presented them in the 2000s or before. Always. And then the real story is this. Yeah. Are you doing that? Right now? Don't take it, it's mine. No, actually, today I'm going to tell you, because it is just quick reminder, still Women's History Month, I'm going to celebrate it by telling you about this amazing woman who built an empire from almost nothing in an era when both her race and her gender made her success, especially to the level that she got to, a near impossibility. But through sheer grit, community building, and an idea for a hair product that came to her in a dream, she turned a door-to-door beauty company into a national powerhouse. This is the story of the trailblazing black businesswoman who became one of America's first self-made female millionaires, Madame C.J. Walker. Oh my God. I don't know this. You haven't heard of her? I don't think so. Okay. The main source for this story is the research and the writing of Alelia Bundles, who is Madame C.J. Walker's great-great-granddaughter. Wow. So she basically wrote her family story, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So Madame C.J. Walker's birth name is Sarah Breedlove. So that's how she starts this story. And it does start in December of 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War. Sarah Breedlove is born on the same cotton plantation in Delta, Louisiana that her parents, Owen and Minerva, have been enslaved on from a few years earlier. So this is early post-emancipation. And although Owen and Minerva technically are free, they work this exact same fields now as sharecroppers. And so if you're not familiar with the reality of sharecropping, it was a physically brutal and deeply exploitative system explicitly designed to keep black families trapped in debt and financially dependent on their white landlords. So they could make a little bit of money, but it was not like the normal free trade being a regular farmer. So Sarah is one of six children. And when she is just seven years old, both of her parents die. Many historians believe it's from an illness like yellow fever or cholera, but officially their causes of death are unclear, probably unregistered. So the now orphaned Sarah moves in with her older sister, Louvina. But then Louvina marries an abusive man, and Sarah becomes desperate to get away from him and get out of that home. So when she's just 14 years old, she marries a sharecropper named Moses McWilliams. And when she's 17, she gives birth to their first child, their daughter named Lilia, who will later go by Alelia, which is the family name that Alelia bundles, I think inherited. But then two years after that, Moses, her husband, Moses dies. So now at just 21 years old, Sarah is left to support herself and her daughter all alone. So they moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where four of Sarah's brothers live, all of them working as barbers. She builds real community in St. Louis. She becomes deeply involved at her local African Methodist Episcopal Church. And of course, she has to work hard to make ends meet between church functions. Sarah works exhausting shifts as a laundress that regularly stretch late into the night, but she still only takes home around $2 a week. And that would be how much in today's money? $25. $75. I would say. Still not great. No. In every way, but she always looks really nice and put together because she believes that as a laundress, if she looks amazing, wears beautiful tailored clothes, that will attract more clients. She'll be her own example of how she can make you look good the way she looks good. Beyond her work, she sees how her outward appearance affects the way people treat her as a black woman. So it's that idea where you can't be casual and you can't be comfortable. You have to be proving yourself all the time. Well, while Sarah can always ensure that her clothes are crisp and clean, what she can't always control is her hair. So now she's in her 30s. She's been struggling with scalp irritation and hair loss for years. And she's consulted her barber brothers and tried about every product on the market, most manufactured by white-run companies. Nothing is really helping. Sarah is not alone at this time, as her daughter, Alelia Bundles, will later note, quote, during the early 1900s, when most Americans lacked indoor plumbing and electricity, bathing was a luxury. As a result, Sarah and many other women were going bald because they washed their hair so infrequently, leaving it vulnerable to environmental hazards such as pollution, bacteria, and lice. End quote. So that's that thing where my grandmother is a similar version, but it's like she would get her hair done at the salon. Shampoo set once a week. Once a week at the most. So it'd be like you had to preserve this. Totally. Hair due. And then for black women, it's even more so. It's like you can't get someone to get it done correctly. Not burn your scalp off. All those things. Products aren't there. Yeah. Yeah. So you're just trying to preserve what you have most of the time. Then Sarah meets someone new and it's her second husband. His name is John Davis. Their relationship is described as quote, troubled, and they also end up divorcing. So Sarah finds herself single again. She's 35 with a child and she is totally unsure as to what her future will hold. She'll later say quote, I was at my tubs one morning with a heavy wash before me. As I bent over the washboard and looked at my arms buried in soap suds, I said to myself, what are you going to do when you grow old and your back gets stiff? Who's going to take care of your little girl? So Sarah has been an amazing mother to her child. By 1905, Alelia has graduated high school. She now goes to Knoxville College in Tennessee. And once that happens, Sarah realizes her daughter is an independent young woman and college student. So she now decides to go to Denver so she can be closer to a family member who's going through tough times. At this point, when she arrives in Denver, she has a dollar fifty to her name. Oh my God. And that's how much in today's bunny. Ninety. Fifty-five. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. That makes more sense. Still, a frightening low number to travel across the country with. By the end of the next year in 1906, Sarah will have married again. This time her new husband is Charles Joseph Walker. And he's an ad sales for a black newspaper. They actually met back in St. Louis and started falling in love back there. So the relationship starts back there and she has to move to Colorado. And when she does that, she takes on domestic work like cooking and white households. And on the side, she continues her work as a sales rep for a beauty company that she also had started back in St. Louis. The company is owned by a businesswoman named Annie Malone. Annie Malone is also black and she's one of the first women in America to build a national cosmetics empire. The company is called Poro and it sells various beauty and hair care products based on what she calls quote, the Poro system. It's geared at treating black women's scalps and strengthening their hair, which is something of course Sarah is very interested in. Annie Malone has amassed a huge sales network that employs thousands of girls and women across the U.S. including Sarah at a time when black women's job options were basically limited to domestic labor and sharecropping. So it's almost like these are products we need desperately and all you have to do is get your little kit and go out into the world and you can sell them. So brilliant. Malone has also launched a successful cosmetic school in St. Louis that doubles as a meeting place for black organizations who have been barred from meeting at other public venues. So you can kind of see the career of Annie Malone really is starting to provide a blueprint for Sarah and her story and how it turns out because Sarah uses Poro products and she sells Poro products, but she still seeks advice from pharmacists and other people familiar with the medicinal ingredients of effective hair products. And so she starts tinkering with her own hair care formulas using herself as a guinea pig. She develops three products that she thinks are particularly effective. Her vegetable shampoo, which has ingredients like honey, tea tree oil and sage in it, right, meant to help with dandruff and scalp irritation. Then there's a product called Glossine, I'm assuming it's pronounced Glossine, which is a hair oil that's intended for both men and women to help soften hair and make it more shiny. Then there's a famous product called Wonderful Hair Grower. The name basically says it all and it has ingredients like beeswax, petroleum, jelly, and coconut oil. Sarah claims that her hair grower formula came to her from the divine. She says, quote, God answered my prayer. For one night I had a dream and in that dream a big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends, it helped them, I made up my mind I would begin to sell it. Wow. So this is how she does it. Here's a recipe. Yes, exactly. So keeping in mind that of course starting a business is a Herculean task for black Americans in this era, PBS points out, quote, along the indelible color line that court cases like Plessy versus Ferguson drew, black people in the turn of the century America were excluded from most trade unions and denied bank capital resulting in trapped lives as sharecroppers or menial low wage earners, end quote. But because the white establishment doesn't see black beauty brands as competition with white owned businesses, entrepreneurs like Sarah and Annie Malone, they have more opportunity because they're going into an area that those people don't care about or even understand. Also these products have fairly low startup costs. So Sarah Breedlove leaves the Poro company, she invests in her own ingredients, her own jars, and then she starts selling her own formulas herself door to door. And it's around this time that she takes her husband's last name. So she starts going by Madame C.J. Walker, and that's what she names her new business. And it not only gives her this era of French sophistication, it's also an act of resistance because in this era, white Americans tend to dismissively refer to black women either by diminutives like Auntie or Sally or just by their first name. White women might be called miss or misses. So basically, Sarah putting Madame C.J. Walker into her name demands respect. Yeah, shirking the system. Yeah, right. So I'll be calling her Madame C.J. Walker from here on out. So taking a page from Annie Malone's Poro company, Madame C.J. Walker rolls out an entire hair care system for black women. In addition to those first three products that I already told you about, her line also includes lotions, pomades and combs. And it operates on the ethos. The black women should feel pride in themselves and in their appearances. The tins all feature an image of Madame C.J. Walker herself, and her dark skin tone is a strong contrast to every other beauty product on the market that uses white or white passing women on their labels. So here's the original can. Oh, wow. So she's like, Madame C.J. Walker, do you need this for your hair? Here's my hair. Yeah. Here's a gorgeous my faces. Yeah. Like how powerful would that be to just one day find that at the store? Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. Oh my God. So good. So before long, the Madame C.J. Walker brand is earning around $10 a week, which is worth around. Do you want to do it again? I can't remember like 70. $360. So she's making. Wow. About 400 bucks a week. In today's money. Shit. And more cash always seems to be coming in. So she hits the road. She spends more than a year and a half traveling across the country to black communities, particularly in the South. And she's demonstrating her products in churches and at community gatherings. And after knocking on countless doors back home, she uses her husband's expertise in advertising and she begins posting ads in black newspapers. So smart. Right. It's said that her consistent ad dollars became the lifeblood of some of these black publications over the years. So it's so smart. It's bring it to your community. Yeah. Keep the money in your community. Like this is their product. Yeah. And then the white man isn't watching you can make some. Yeah. A nice living for yourself. Yeah. Amazing. By 1908, Madame C.J. Walker has become so successful. She opens her own cosmetic school. She names it Lillia College after her daughter and her daughter will go on to manage that school. And when she grows up, Madame C.J. Walker trains her beauty school students to become quote hair culture lists so that they can share. God, she would love TikTok today. She would fucking destroy on TikTok today so that they can share her haircare methods throughout the country. So basically she teaches all of the women who are become her salespeople. It's one step further in that of like, you're not just salespeople. Yeah. You're hair culture lists. Yeah. You're going to help them get their hair back. I love it. Within a few years of that, Madame Walker opens her own factory complete with a second cosmetic school and a beauty salon inside it. Yeah. So this is going. It's a time of incredible growth for Madame C.J. Walker and her business. Sadly, not for her personal life. She ends up divorcing her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker over quote business differences. What she does is she keeps his last name though, because she's not changing that for this, even though she's become an overwhelming success in business in just a couple of years, Madame C.J. Walker is not getting the recognition she deserves from the male dominated black business establishment. This includes famed educator and advocate Booker T. Washington, who's the head of what's known then as the National Negro Business League. It's now been renamed the National Business League. But at the time it connected black entrepreneurs across the country, aiming to support them and black businesses. So the people of Madame C.J. Walker's era have a stigma against black beauty brands. They're largely run by women. The stigma is that it puts undue focus on appearance at a time when real bodily violence is regularly being waged on black Americans. Also the criticism is that they're selling products that push white beauty standards. Right. But when this accusation comes up, Madame C.J. Walker consistently pushes back on this idea that her products are somehow helping black women assimilate into the white status quo. She was once quoted as saying, quote, let me correct the erroneous impression held by some that I claim to straighten hair. I deplore such an impression because I've always held myself out as a hair culturalist. I grow hair. She doesn't straighten hair. Yeah. She grows it. End quote. As the official website for the Madame C.J. Walker estate notes, there is a persistent falsehood that she invented straightening combs and chemical perms. She did not. The undeniable fact is that by 1912, Madame C.J. Walker is employing around 1600 salespeople and generating about $4,000 a month, which is more than $130,000 a month in today's money. Holy shit. She is a business powerhouse who's always working to expand her operation, even spending time in Central American and Caribbean nations. We were just there in a Caribbean nation. And yet none of that even gets her a mention at the 1912 National Business League convention. Sure. And you better believe she is there in the audience and she's so frustrated. She stands up and addresses Booker T. Washington directly in front of everyone saying, quote, surely you are not going to shut the door in my face. I'm a woman who started a business seven years ago with only a dollar 50. I went into a business that is despised, that is criticized and talked about by everybody, the business of growing hair. I've been trying to get before you business people to tell you what I'm doing. I'm a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the wash tub. Then I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself. I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others. In 1913, Madam C.J. Walker donates a thousand dollars, which is more than $30,000 in today's money to help fund the building of a black YMCA in Indianapolis. It's so much money, it grabs national newspaper headlines. And just for perspective, the average black family's income around this time is around $12 a week. Jesus. And she donates a thousand. She, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So she's undeniable. Yeah. And God have frustrating for her that like, oh. Yeah, they just, well, it's like, oh, you do that thing. Right. Which is what culture does to women. Yeah. You do something you're successful. Well, that's immoral. You shouldn't do that. Right. That's bad. Yeah. Vocal fry. Yeah. We've all. Right. You land in the winner's circle and they figure out all the ways to push you out. Yeah. You don't know what I'm talking about. You have no experience like this. What do you mean? What in the world could you mean? But the good news is Booker T. Washington did take her seriously. And so he invites her to the next year's 1913 National Business League Convention. And he invites her to address attendees who come. And he also comes to Indianapolis for the YMCA's dedication ceremony. Wow. It's reported that Madam Walker sends her chauffeur to pick him up from the train station. Yes. And she has him stay at her home as a guest. Amazing. So she's going to show him exactly how successful she is. Little baller. Right. Love this woman. Yeah. Like where she got this spirit. Yeah. And it like clearly it's like her parents or people like will do it ourselves. Yeah. We'll we'll go and do it then. Incredible. And her brothers for Barbers. Yeah. Like. Pittsburgh. Yeah. So by 1916 when she's around 49 years old Madam CJ Walker has grown a national network of around 40,000 salespeople. My God. She begins organizing them into regional chapters who meet annually at their own conventions. The inaugural Madam CJ Walker hair culture lists Union of America Convention is held in 1917. Oh my God. So in 1912 they try to push her out and within four years she's got her own fucking convention is how she does it. Wow. And it's one of the first national business women conferences in American history. Jesus. Separate from skin color. Madam CJ Walker uses that meaning to celebrate and reward her employees for their hard work. It said that she is widely considered to be a wonderful boss. Wow. But this beauty convention is also expressly political. Now the summer of 1917 is remembered as a particularly violent period with many incidents of horrific racist brutality at the hands of white mobs. It's only four years later that the burning of Black Wall Street happened, which we talk about on this show, which is a horrible example of one of those moments. OK. So at the 1917 convention, Madam CJ Walker tells her employees quote, this is the greatest country under the sun, but we must not let our love of our country, our patriotic loyalty, cause us to abate one wit in our protest against wrong and injustice. End quote. That same summer, Madam CJ Walker is among the organizers of a march down New York City's Fifth Avenue protesting racial violence. Wow. Many of her employees participate. Meanwhile, her net worth is ballooning and etching her into history as one of the very first self-made female millionaires ever. Holy fucking shit. How do we not know about this? I don't know. Why isn't that name a household name? Well, Madam CJ Walker buys beautiful homes in several cities. She begins building an impressive 35 room, three story mansion in Irvington on Hudson, New York, 20 miles north of the city in Westchester County. Oh my God. And this is the area where several white male gilded aged tycoons have built estates. Yeah. And it's said that Madam Walker wants to live here specifically to symbolize God, she's the greatest. I know. She's the greatest. She's gotta figure it out. Specifically to symbolize everything that a black woman can accomplish. Fuck yeah. Dude, I fucking love it. She's like the original version of representation matters. Put your face on the can. Yeah. Put your fucking house next to the white tycoons. Stand over the convention that won't acknowledge you and tell them why they fucking will and must acknowledge you. I'll be here next year and hear the reasons why Booker T. Washington. Dude. So awesome. Okay. She even contacts New York's first registered black architect to build that property for Amazing. Just badass. Yeah. As her Westchester mansion is being completed, Madam C.J. Walker spends much of her time in Harlem and she becomes very passionate about the NAACP's anti-lynching work that they have started. She donates the equivalent of $126,000 in today's money to them. And in 1917, she visits the White House to advocate for federal anti-lynching laws. She's going all the way there. This isn't like, oh, that might affect my reputation if I get into that business. Less than two years later in 1919, Madam C.J. Walker dies of kidney failure brought on by hypertension. She's 51 years old. Wow. Not long before her death, she updates her will so that two thirds of her future net profits from her company go to charity. Wow. Her family has plenty. Yeah. That's how you do it. Yeah. She leaves about $100,000 of her fortune, which is more than 2.5 million today, to causes like funding schools, civil rights organizations and black community institutions. After her death, Madam C.J. Walker's beloved daughter, Alelia, carries her mother's legacy forward and becomes one of the most important patrons of black artists and thinkers during the Harlem Renaissance. Alelia will pass in 1931 when she's in her mid-40s, also of complications caused by hypertension. Decades later, her namesake and Madam C.J. Walker's great, great granddaughter, Alelia Bundles, whose research has been cited extensively in the story, works to preserve her family's history and to tell their complete story. Of Madam C.J. Walker, Alelia said, quote, when I look at her life, I think it's fabulous that she became a millionaire. It's stunning that she became a millionaire. But for me, the most lasting legacy is that she empowered people and that she used her money to make a difference in her community and to show other people their ability to make a difference in their communities. End quote. And that's the story of Madam C.J. Walker. Oh my God. We should do a donation to end this. Good idea. Where do you want to do it to? How about the NAACP? Let's do it. Sound good? Yeah. I love it. 10 grand? If we could only be a tenth of what Madam C.J. Walker was. Truly, which in today's percentage is 10 grand. Is 10 grand at the NAACP? Oh my God. That's amazing. Yeah. Great job. Thank you. I've hit all the spots. Right? Yeah. Inspiring. Fun. Yeah. And TikTok-y. And hair. And hair. She didn't fucking meet TikTok even. She did it herself. She went out there and did it herself. That's right. She found the niche. She found the unanswered niche. She answered it. You guys find yours. We'll be there supporting you and backing you up and we're fucking on your side. And then once you do that, right into us at myfavoritmurder.com and tell us all about all of your dreams coming true. Yeah. We want to be right in your vision board. Manifesting style like it's already happened. Right. Or if it already did, tell us. I built my mansion on Irvington on Hudson right next to all the other Taycans. Thank you guys so much for listening. We appreciate you as always forever and ever. We appreciate you watching if you're on Netflix. Yeah, we do. This is podcasting. Have you heard of it? Podcasting 2026, baby. Hey. All right. Here we go. This is really going to be a true honking hooray. Yeah, definitely. Because you love to honk the horn. I do. And I can't read while I'm driving or I'll get viciously car sick. No, so I will handle reading all the honking horay. OK. Also, thank you to Hyundai for letting us present the honking hurays in action in a moving car. In my actual Hyundai. Also, I just want to point out that this car has air conditioning in the seats. In the seats. In the seats. Our butts are so air conditioned right now. I can't even tell you as a middle aged woman how important this feature is to me. It's truly innovative. OK, you want to start these? Yeah, let's do it. Read to me, please. Here's our first honking hooray presented by Hyundai. It says, hi to my closest gal pals that I've never actually met. While listening to your Rewind episode, The Great Guy Law Time New Year Spectacular, featuring Guy Brannum, I had a full circle moment. The last time I heard this episode was eight years ago when I had just packed up my life and moved across the country for law school. I was also more than tired of studying for my final criminal law exam. So imagine my joy when I realized Karen and Georgia were suddenly helping me review the McNaughton rule. Remember that? And y'all, I ace that exam. You and Guy Brannum are absolutely welcome to take the credit. That alone is a major hooray, but the bigger hooray is this. The episode reminded me of how far I've come since then. Cops. The real cops. Yes. From behind, from the side. OK, now we're good. OK. In the eight years since, I've tackled plenty of obstacles, like taking the bar exam in my bathroom, and then it says, yes, really, thanks, COVID, and your charming at-home testing rules that disqualified every other room in my apartment. Oh my God. And yet here we are in 2025, two dogs, one husband, one baby, one law degree later, and MFM was the soundtrack to it all. Hooray for women in male-dominated fields, for working moms, and for Guy Brannum's criminal law expertise. Stay sexy and don't forget how far you've come. Amanda. Oh my God. Congratulations. Amanda is a mom, a lawyer, a badass, and it's all because of us. Do you understand that? Congratulations, and you're welcome. I think the McNaughton Rule really came alive when we talked about it. That's what they're welcome to out about it. That's right. Here's the next one. This says airplane hooray, and it says, hi ladies, my hooray is my flight. I fly almost every week for work, so flights typically don't bother me. On this flight, we had taken off and we were in the air for about an hour when they told us to turn around and make an emergency landing due to the, in all caps, hydraulic system having a break in it. What? That's right. Very similar to episode 486. Take these from me. That was the title. Take these from me. That was the title. I, having just listened to this episode, started to freak out while simultaneously keeping a calm composure. All I could do was think about, oh God, this is going to be just like that MFM episode. Luckily, the amazing pilots landed us safe and sound with just a little more than a jolt. Thanks for helping me make my commutes entertaining. Brad. Uh huh. Brad. Brad, you survived. Brad, you really did it. Okay, I'm going to read another one. Okay. Because this one's really fun. This says, you guys, listening to the recent call in Farrell hometown made me remember I had something to share. I went across the pond for the first time recently where I got engaged. It's a hooray in itself, but the best part of my trip, going to a small town in England where we met some people at a pub who were obsessed with my fiance over his resemblance to Colin Farrell. We hung out and got drunk with them for hours. Not once did they call him by his real name. For one magical night, I was engaged to a movie star. So hooray for my super haughty boyfriend, soon to be my husband. Love you, Ryan, who I wouldn't trade for anyone in the world, even Colin. And that's from Tess. Aw, Tess. Tess, that's a really sweet honking hooray. It's about love. It's about appreciating Irish people. I mean, English people. It should be Irish people. It's about going to bars and meeting new people. All the great things in this world. Yeah. Well, those are our honking hooray. That's it. That's it. Thanks, Hyundai, for giving us this car to drive around. And for sponsoring our honking hooray. Hi. Stay sexy. Okay. And don't get murdered. Bye. Hey, you want a cookie? 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