Dorinda Medley’s Memoir Make It Nice and Traitors Hot Takes

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So this is going to be a fun episode where we just cover that hot 10%. Now let's dive in. Don't come here and extend a hand to me. Hi, Dorinda. How you doing? Everything, you know, f*** you. I'll tell you how I'm doing. Not well, bitch. Okay. My guest today is Rachel Friedland. Rachel is a comedian and writer. She recently released her first comedy album, Certified Delight, and currently hosts a podcast, somewhat brand new, called Minor League TV, a reality TV playback podcast that rewinds and dissects iconic moments from your favorite reality shows. So we thought she would be the perfect guest for this book. Have you made your morning nice today? Have you made it nice? I have a coffee. I don't have a handwritten menu about my coffee, but I do have a coffee. Yeah. Okay. And then I would say Dorinda would say you did not make it nice. I made it okay. You made it okay. Understandable. Listen, I like Dorinda. I think she was so compelling when she was put on pause at Real Housewives. I said that was correct. I just remember seeing an episode where she's like, I'm going to take a nap. And that was the storyline. And I thought, yeah, it's best she's put on pause. Now, she came back onto the traitors. And you've been watching the traitors, yes? I've been watching the traitors. This is my first time I've watched, like the first season I've watched of The Traitors. Oh, wow. Okay, what are you thinking? I have a handful of thoughts. I'm not a like competition reality person. Typically, I'll watch like a Top Chef or something. And I don't count Love Island as competition. You believe it's true love they're doing over there on that island? No, I just, I'm like monogamy as gameplay is crazy, but that's fine. So yeah, it's my first season watching. And seeing her this season has not really been a thing. We've not seen much of her. It is unbelievably underwhelming on all fronts. And listen, Lisa Rinna also has a memoir. It's coming. Lisa Rinna also on The Traitors. Both of them, exceptionally underwhelming performances on The Traitors. Like, housewives have this air about them of, like, don't mess with housewives. Housewives will throw a table. Yeah. Both of them really seems pretty lost. Like, they just came to the castle and they were like, I guess I'm having a bagel each morning. and then just kind of going home. And it's like, no, you were supposed to bring some drama. And I thought Dorinda was pretty, kind of brought nothing. I think she brought nothing. And I think she's also getting edited out for whatever she did bring, because I don't think she brought something nice. Yeah, she did not make it nice, which if you're unfamiliar with Dorinda, that's what the book is called. That's kind of one of her famous little fun phrases on The Housewives. So to talk a little bit of backstory before I get into the book, because the book's going to take us about five minutes to get through. Dorinda went on an episode of The Traitors, immediately was sent home. They then brought her back. They're like, try again, bitch, which is hilarious. Question from me, because watching it, I was like, did she beg to come back? Because in my understanding, when she was put on pause, obviously earth shattering to her. So for her to get booted off the first episode of last season and then to come back, I was like, man, is she really trying to get back in Andy Cohen's good graces to be like, I can still make TV, honey. you know oh a thousand percent i don't know what went on behind the scenes but even if she was begging there must have been a ton of producers saying wait wait wait dorinda is going to deliver we've got to try again like and knowing what i know of dorinda i am a housewives fan i expected so much more and she just didn't bring it this time either and then jill zarin was supposed to be on the upcoming e-series the golden life which is reuniting a few of the og roni cast members including sonia morgan luan ramona singer and jill about a week ago was fired from this series after posting online that there was quote literally no white people in bad bunny's halftime show and she didn't think it was quote appropriate to have it in spanish and they said you're fired Dorinda's hired Dorinda gets to be like I'm not on pause anymore told you bitches and Dorinda's back however sounds like had Jill not been the dumbest most racist person alive because there were white people in the halftime performance not that it fucking matters even if there weren't shut up that Dorinda maybe wouldn't be coming back I wonder how Dorinda feels about that being like thank you you're runner-up to our other racist lady that decided to open her mouth yeah well okay so then the other thing with traitors again we're gonna get into the book is that on screen ron funches was shown to actually be pretty rude to dorinda where he was like i don't give a fuck about you or your life i'm here to play a game get away from me i hate you i kind of loved him saying that even though it came out of nowhere okay so tell me more tell me more i just think because i see ron funges as like what a nice sweet man and then for him to come in with some attitude i was like let him have it ron and i kind of felt like i think my frustration with the show was like early episodes everyone just needs to pick someone to be a traitor based on vibes and everyone was going gunning for ron for whatever reason so i kind of liked him being like i have to stand up for myself you know defend my honor as a faithful well see on camera you had seen Dorinda being like I'm asking about your family I'm trying to be nice to you I mean so routine now Ron has since come out and said actually she was very rude to me off camera or like in the vans when they were traveling Ron is known as a sweet teddy bear but I do have something to say about Dorinda and Ron which is that both of them went on to the traders seemingly like I am here to play like a really cool game and I wanted to shout at both of them you're actually on tv and neither of you are doing the thing you're known for ron wasn't being sweet or funny he wasn't funny he was like i am here to fucking rock the traders round table and present evidence and i was like ron if no one has ever seen you before they would never know you're a comedian like where's the one-liners where's the quips where's what you're known for he was too in his head i think he was trying to be like how do i play this game i'm so confused should you render I would say, please start playing the game. Yeah. Please start doing something. And she really did it. It's very fascinating to watch everyone because they do bring in people who are like on Survivor and who do actual like social strategy, actual like gameplay. And obviously that's why Rob is doing so well because he can, I don't know, tap in. But I was like, oh, it's too much for me as a first time viewer to be like, guys, I'm a little frustrated because half of you are doing it good. And the other half of you are Maura being like, if I lie about not knowing anyone, that's my strategy. huh i do think everyone in the castle reacted pretty tough to ron anyways i just want to say but lisa biggest disappointment that being said not more disappointing than this book from dorinda medley okay we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back things have been wild schedule wise over here and i've been starting my day by rolling out of bed And then the one thing I do before I leave the house is I slick them brows back. 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Start Hycera to support your glow without compromising on clean science. For a limited time, save 25% on your first month at ritual.com slash glamorous. That's ritual.com slash glamorous for 25% off your first month. Okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation. I was actually reading it and just going, I wonder what Chelsea's going to say about this because I was like every paragraph. I was like, huh? What? Explain. I felt like English teacher, fifth grade class being like, show don't tell. Yeah. Oh, I actually want to issue an apology to Erica Jane's memoir and be like, sorry, I guess, I guess your memoir was phenomenal in the canon of housewives because this, I wrote this down constantly. I said, I feel like I am reading the Wikipedia of her life, but it's in first person. That's a great way to put it. I kept being like, is it her journal entry? Is it letter to a friend or like acquaintance? I felt like it was Wikipedia because it was just like, I was born and then I got married. And it was like, yeah, I guess technically that is what happened. So it begins. And Dorinda, I would say from her point of view, is like on the soft side of middle class. I bet she was on the soft side of upper middle class. I was going to say soft is putting it softly. Yeah, she well, she really is just like work. she didn't say working class but it was very much like a family on a budget but then she would give examples like they wouldn't pay for me to go to boston college i had to take a scholarship and it's like okay so this isn't i don't know you're not poor that's but in her mind she's like a family that has to save money we might as well have been poor like yes and then i would say all of it boring every moment of childhood extremely boring until she gets to the part where she's like I'm off to college and I started like sewing my own clothes or putting your own clothes together. Do we think she was stitching again? There's no details. So I was trying to figure out, oh, there were so many times that she would write something about like, and this was a really hard time. And I would go, why was it a hard time? There were no examples of anything she did to be like, I really struggled, but I saved money. And I, she talked about backpacking through Europe at one point and I was like well how'd you do that lady yeah you're telling us about how you like ran out of money twice in the city and had to move home but then somehow you backpack through Europe I know and also hey newsflat and I love it I love it everyone should have it but if you can move home you're you're then then your family's not strong if you have a plan b yep your family's fine and I everyone should have a plan b but yes and she went to the Berkshire school, which is also on name alone. I'm like, sounds fancy. I will say there's one page in the childhood section that I thought was quite lovely and vulnerable. She said she wanted to be perfect. She wanted to be great in life. She wanted to do something amazing. And she said, I wanted to become successful, but there was a lot of doubt. I feared I wouldn't make it. It was no longer the driving force that was pulling my life forward. I was being dragged backwards by my unrealistic expectations of myself. Quote, I need to do my best became I am not enough and will never be enough. There will always be someone prettier, smarter or skinnier. So the dream of being the best went from a dream to a nightmare, a journey that was exhausting and unhealthy. As a consequence of all the pressure I put on myself, I developed an eating disorder. And so she talks about the drive to succeed and the fear that you wouldn't becoming a negative force versus a driving force. but then she says one night her mom stands up at the dinner table and says you better snap out of it dorinda or you're going to squander everything you've worked for you'll either end up in the hospital or i will put you there if i have to and then she was like yep and then i got over my eating disorder listen and just like that the true i'm like the boomer mentality of just being like you're right i have no feelings next i didn't know you could be shouted out of a eating disorder would have loved someone to yell me out of it, I guess. That might be a Polish family special, actually. Yeah. I, you know, I just, it's one of those things where you're like, oh, a lot more went into this that we're just not gonna hear about in the book. But I love also that up top in the book, she's like, and don't worry, I'm going to tell you everything, which I never like in a memoir where they're like, and more on that later. And you're like, well, I, I wasn't worried that you weren't going to share until now. Until I finished the book. Yeah. And there was nothing in it. and there was nothing in it. Then immediately she's like, I moved to New York City and I marry Ralph And the moment she marries Ralph if you know the show or you can actually read Wikipedia you realize she marries into the one percent she marries into financial banker you not even going to work anymore your job is literally to just be the wife yeah yeah and i love that that was her ascension and she's like but i still worked really hard being a wife and you're like okay i'm sure i'm sure that was pretty crazy but this is a huge pivot. This is how she becomes Dorinda society woman, Dorinda rich lady, Dorinda woman of leisure. I'm like, what? Like, were you on the town being like, where are the richies? Like, where are the men's with money? I'm looking for men in suits. Were you trying to live a cool fashion life and just happened to fall in love with a banker? Sure. And this is, of course, not long after she's like, and don't worry, I worked. I feel Like it was a lot of convincing us of being like, and I've been in the workforce before, right? I had a resume once. She definitely had a job. She was a buyer at Macy's. Chill. Love it. And then Liz Claiborne. She was like, and then one day I got a bonus from Liz Claiborne and I was on top of the world that I went to this bar and I said, everybody, I just got a bonus. Drinks on me for the entire bar, which again, I want more details because she sounds fun, man. That I said, I wish I was at that bar. Wish I was at that bar, but that's the only detail we get. Then she says, I checked my bank account balance. I realized I have $0. I call my family. I'm like, hey, I messed up. Can I move home? And I said, did they fire you? Because you still had a job at Liz Clayport. Just because you blew your bonus. Why are you moving home? She quit the job and moved home. She said, I got to start over. Again, Chelsea, like you just said, when you have a backup plan, why not just go rely on that? I'm sure she was like, well, that's humiliating. So my only choice is to leave and try to reinvent myself. it's humiliating i blew my bonus i guess i'll quit my job and move home the next day right and go back to waitressing also which is totally fine but she was seemed so happy in new york doing you know doing her little lifestyle there i do also just want to add one thing because there's so much of dorinda is so pleased with her like class ascension that she really is willing to let you know when she looks down on others and it is yeah fascinating when she's living in new york She does talk about, and I think she's trying to be like, see, I'm nice. She like helps an old lady get groceries and stuff. She's like, this old lady really has no one. And then at the end, she's like, her apartment was filthy. She lives a lonely life. I don't want to end up like that. That looks terrible. If you're a woman who wants to like use your platform and hates injustice, there was a bigger impact you could have made there. Don't write about it like this. Yeah, I really have eyes on the ghostwriter and editor. And in the very back of the book, because all the best parts are always in the acknowledgements, she thinks her agent, her book agent, she was like, I know it was a long road, but we did it. And I said, if you were shopping this manuscript, I bet it was a long road. This is nothing. This book is also being written after she is let go from the housewives. So she needs a comeback. She needs a book that comes out swinging like a baseball bat. And as we'll continue to see, it is not that. Here's a fun story, though. so she was doing this sales job for Liz Claiborne and the other cool part of this story is that she showed up for the job interview and someone was hired and so they sent everyone home and so then she just kept showing up every single day and was like I'm here to interview and one day the woman was like fine and she was like I'll do anything for the job and she's like okay you're hired and then it meant that once she was hired by that manager beyond doing the sales part of the sales job for Liz Claiborne, her duty was to brush and braid her manager's hair. She said in the mornings while she did her makeup, I would brush her hair and braid it. Back then, this was totally acceptable thing to ask an underling to do. I also somehow had to walk her dog before work. And sometimes on Saturday mornings, she'd call and ask me to do her grocery shopping. And I used to babysit her kids for free. I mean, that was brutal, brutal treatment of your sales associate. Anyways, i think maybe that's why when she blows her bonus she just quits and moves home but unclear or yeah or say that say actually i didn't want to do that kind of work it sounds bad dorinda like that i don't think it's wrong to be like actually not the kind of job i want to do that's okay and here's the thing we know it wasn't because she's like i'm getting married i'm getting out of here does she say that in the book no but she meets this man ralph at a wedding now she said i knew the bride he knew the groom after ralph spoke to me for the first time i said oh my god you have a real british accent no he said it's a scottish accent i was mesmerized and impressed by ralph's accent now this will be the first of many times jorinda says something culturally rude rude and ignorant In the margin, I wrote, that is so American. Yeah. Oh, my God, a real British man. It's Scottish. And then he said, you know, go on a date with me. So Ralph loved it. It was not that offensive to him. God bless. But listen, I wrote this down. This is coming from a person who will slip into a British accent often. Am I proud of that? No. You're doing a Britney Spears in your life? You're just chosen and out? Just a little touch here and there. Where do you think that comes from? Give us a little insight. because Madonna is doing it too. Not in day to day speak, but every now and again, if I'm talking about God, the only word that's coming to mind is the word body. You know, I'm talking about bodies a lot. Why not? Um, and I'll go, Oh yeah, you know, you got to move your body. And it's just that. Now, are you a Love Island UK girly? Oh, 100%. Yeah. This happens to all of you. All of you come out and you're like, he's, he's fit. He's right fit. Yeah. Just a little something. It doesn't help that I do have a British friend who will egg me on. And so I blame him. But it is so funny to watch her write this and you're like, I'd be actually so embarrassed to be in front of you in front of a British person. Oh, yeah. Well, then she said, next to Ralph, I felt like a lady. I remember standing there under this very tall man thinking this is someone I could really sink my teeth into. By the way, I was still wearing braces when we met. I gotta say, love her for those three sentences. One, she's fallen under the old, he's tall. I've got a boner for him. Him taller, me baby, I want to date him. Secondly, this bitch went in swinging with braces. You know what? Love that for you, Dorinda. Yeah, he said as a banker, he went investment. She's going to get those things taken off. We're going to look great together. He said that's going to pay off. That's going to pay off. And good for both of them. Good for both of them. there's one fun story from their date that he picks her up in a town car that has a phone in it and she's like oh my god the wealth and she was like i thought that was so cool i mean how would you not slip off the seat in the 80s phone in the car you know what i mean you're like oh my god yeah 80s phone in the car might as well be a private jet yeah you're right i'd be like shit and he's tall I guess I'm done here. I had three qualities. Have a car. Car has phone. You tall. Let's get married. So then she said, Ralph took me to a beautiful dinner, and afterwards I took him to an Irish bar that I liked. The band started playing The Unicorn by the Irish Rovers, which goes green alligators and long-necked geese, some Humpty Dumpty bat camels, and some chimpanzees. If you don't know this song, let's pause here. Do you know this song? Oh, no. Are you familiar with the hit? No, I'm not familiar. her maybe christina can play it in the episode green alligators and long neckies but she said there's a famous dance that goes along with it well i got up on the bar and started dancing and he thought this is the type of person i need in my life again she has little moments where you're like this is why you got a book deal is why you're on the housewives you're very fun while being like kind of grounded and put together like she's got a cool personality it's just not often in the book right yes a i want to be at the bar when she's buying everyone shots i also want to be at the bar when she's dancing on the table i'd love to see that dance sounds very she said i was struck at how at ease ralph's friends seemed and how nobody looked tired when you have money you weren't anxious all the time you weren't scared you slept more soundly and had fewer wrinkles lol bitch you fucking thing and then what's so funny about this is that no less than two paragraphs later she writes the sentence with ralph it wasn't a passionate love affair it was true partnership another way to say me lovey money me love money ralph had money yeah very money i love an arrangement i put 90 day fiance effect where it's like oh yeah we got to play roles happy to step into that happy to and speaking of 90 day fiance ralph gets transferred to hong kong for his job and she's like i'm moving to hong kong family her mom cries they get engaged they move to hong kong and then she pretty much just describes like i didn't speak the language and so i hated it yeah which i get cultural clashes are hard and moving to a new country is hard also you got to go out more than one day and it does sound like she went out of the house one day had a tough time getting around went right back in that mansion and never left in that mansion and let's talk about the place you got hooked up in hong kong lady you are in the nicest of the nice parts your husband fiance works for exxon i'm like you're doing oil baron shit abroad and you're like I can't be around this many Chinese. It was so I really I wrote this is fucked up. Yeah, it was so sad. It was sad to know how much she missed out on and the amount of options she had. Like she had a maid who was trying to brush her hair. So that's the level of wealth she's now at. She couldn't have said like, hey, how about instead of that, teach me a couple phrases. Let's go about the town let's do something yeah let's go to the market let's walk outside and for someone who has painted herself as someone who like loves an adventure has traveled abroad before it's not like this part is foreign to you i know but backpacking in europe is a real different kind of abroad i have friends who wrote a song a million years ago in comedy tim dunn and sarah shockey and it was a song about how like i want to go abroad but only to the white countries you know i mean so they're like i've been abroad but like you really did only go to like the parts of Europe that yes close this to America and this feels like that yes and I'm sure that you've seen tons of photos of yeah I think I just didn't have as much empathy for her because I'm like again a maid is brushing your hair just go out just try it oh I had no empathy for her I said this is crazy like and here's the thing maybe you were a total ignorant 26 year old in Hong Kong who didn't know how to handle yourself you are writing this more than 25 years later like hong kong sucked you're like okay so then she cries every day and begs ralph to transfer so ralph transfers to london and then this is how she writes about london london exceeded my expectations and i instantly fell in love with the city people dressed up people valued tradition everyone was just so glamorous they dazzled effortlessly they made the ordinary feel luxurious london was like a white cashmere blanket that is used every day but never gets stained or pills i said certainly a part of london could be that for you did you ever go around london no listen small small tangent my husband's film got into the london film festival so we went for like a quick three days and it started to become a thing with us where anytime we were interacting with anyone like at the hotel or like Uber driver at the restaurant, anything, we were just like, oh my gosh, like this is so lovely. How do you love London? Something like that. And no joke, six different people were like, I hate it here. I'm dying. I've never seen the sun. The financial collapse is upon me. I live an hour from the city and have a nice day, dumbasses. And we were like, wow. And you know what that is like something you could say in la or new york city in a city that's like really hard for anyone who is working class and so i know for anyone listening in london there's just so much diversity there's so many great parts of it it's just funny that dorinda was like everyone is from a castle in london and they dress up and you never get dirty that's not my london accent that is my dorinda's london accent which is spot on it also just highlights her being like hong kong gross and yucky but london with all the white people i could see in the white neighborhood i lived in was pretty fucking rad it's just like ma'am okay we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back i have been wearing my three pairs of pants from quince constantly on the rig i've got black navy and brown i'm tall so i love that i could get a long inseam they also have short inseams available. Quince's goods are quality first. 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Let's continue the conversation. it sonia so she lives in london which definitely is a huge part of her personality of like i not only am i a woman of society but like i'm friends with people at buckingham i made a sweater for princess die she starts this cashmere sweater company it's not really a company it's like a tupperware party but with cashmere sweaters okay i wrote mlm vibes because i was like i've not heard of this and sorry i did not do any extra research into it but i was like this doesn't feel great. It just feels like I'm a bored housewife and I'm going to start selling my cashmere sweaters. Yeah. And she would customize them for fancy ladies. Well, of course. I did like in this one part about going to London that she was in awe of how much shrimp cocktail there were at parties. I did love that. Because it was really sweet that she was like, that was such a like, luxurious meal to have. And then here was just a bunch of shrimp all the time. And I was like, that is like kid at the candy store like chocolate fountain moment and i was like a hundred percent yeah you right i did love that detail and i i wish there were more of those of her to be like and this is how much more my life ascended in these ways You know like what are the details besides like everyone dressed nice Okay Yeah Well also I just wish there was more of a plot point between like this huge decision of marriage and this wild change It's just kind of like I got married and the shrimp cocktail was there. Like, it's not written to be, like, my entire life changed, you know? and also I feel like she has to be hiding either that she really wanted this and was manhunting or she was really taken surprise by this great love she had for Ralph and so she enters this life but it can't be that it has to be I wanted a rich man to change my life because she has her daughter Hannah who she has this great experience giving birth where it totally changes her and is just very enlightening as to her capacities to love and the next page in many ways ralph and i had already begun to grow apart but there was something about hannah's birth that trivialized any worry i had about our marriage we just loved her presence she was fertilizer that made our love grow wherever she was our love for hannah bonded us forever that was why we were truly able to raise her together and then she's like yeah my marriage just like kind of ended i wrote don't do that don't do that don't i'm like lady you can't encourage everyone to have a kid in order to be like see it did make the marriage work for at least at least six more years yeah yeah i know i know and because there's no like real romance in this story it's like i danced he loved it he was tall i loved it we had a kid it helped us stay together and then she's like over time we were living different lives and Ralph was working 15 hours a day so she is extremely lonely and she's really building this independence with her friend group and all this stuff but it does kind of sound like it was always a settle it was always like oh we're nice friends and so we married right versus like a passionate love affair which is positive because when they divorce they raise Hannah together he continues to pay for her life she's a stay-at-home mom even post-divorce that's I claim, you know what I mean? I do think at a certain tax bracket, your marriage is an agreement. And I think that's a beautiful thing. And I'm very happy for her that she still just got to be a housewife. What was she going to do? Go back to work, get a bonus and spend it all? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it feels like reading fourth wing. Like I'm reading about dragons and shit. When I read about, I got a divorce and then he got me a house and apartment paid for me. Loved, loved to pay child support. And we had a nice life. I'm like, whoa, never seen that happen in real life. So yeah, you're right. I love it for her. And really, she just gets to live her life. And then she moves back to America. And she says, looking back, there's a part of me that feels a little guilty because I didn't consult Ralph as much as I should have before I left. Lucky for me, very soon after we moved, Ralph followed us. It was in New York where he met his now wife whom he adores. So if you're reading this, Ralph, you're welcome. She loves his new wife. Something like that is so beautiful because ain't never gonna be me oh absolutely not oh never gonna be me i respect how healthy you are and it ain't never gonna be me children of a toxic divorce rise up this book is not for you this book is not for you this will piss you off so much it was very like i think at one point i was like okay so you're in a polycule and you just won't call it that oh i love that i wish she was like and now we're in a polycule that'd be sick in a way financially she was she was in a financial polycule yeah sure one thing i do want to give her a lot of flowers for is that she is constantly calling out great female best friends i mean there's and there's caroline there's i lost track of it because i would circle it every time she is great about having a cool female friend who helps her move or helps her come to America or takes her to parties or she really is a girl's girl, which could be funny to say if you know her from Housewives, but from her memoir, like she has a army of women throughout her life that she keeps in her life. And worked hard to get them. Like she describes being very persistent in her pursuit of female friendship of being like, yes, yeah. And I inappropriately became friends with my husband's boss. Who cares? She's cool. I want to. Yeah. yeah oh absolutely and i want a cool friend or part of the reason she and ralph gets the worst because she has all these great friends and such a great full life and he's working 15 hours a day and they just they're not connected anymore yeah and i yeah i love her calling that out of like i had a good network because yes everyone needs one every everybody needs a community okay so she's in new york now ralph's paying for everything but at some point she's like dating is really annoying. So I stopped looking for men and I started looking for a job. It was time to get back to work. But what would I do? Everybody guess what do you think she's going to do? She worked in sales. She made sweaters. Princess Di bought one. What's next? Dorinda becomes a real estate agent. But she said like one of my dearest friends, Sarah and I decided to go work for a boutique firm. Like there's women where like you'll never hear from them again, but they're part of her journey, which I thought was fun. She becomes a real estate agent and she sells a place to this very rich man who's much older than her named Richard. And she says when he ends up renting a townhouse on 63rd between Park and Madison, he was happy. She was happy. He was dating someone. They parted ways. Six months later, he called my office. Dorinda, I have Richard Medley on the phone. I answered the phone unsure of what he wanted. Hi, Richard. How is it going? Well, very well, actually. So then she said, yes, I wanted to date Richard now that he was single. and she said but he asked me to a party the next night and I said no I have a daughter if you want to ask a single mother out on a date you really should ask her a week in advance so she can get a babysitter how about three weeks from tomorrow very funny I have to go so she hangs up and she says anyway the following evening I was at that party and she said all of a sudden he tapped my shoulder I turned around and saw Richard I thought oh no it was such a big party I thought I might not run into him he said i see you got a babysitter for your daughter he said and she said i told you i have a daughter not that i didn't have a babysitter we laughed hysterically at some point he said are you available a week from today for a date this time i said yes i said oh she read the rules that dating book the rules oh okay yes i was like reading this in my head i was like okay she has the rules that she's really abiding by but no that's that's the book that's never accepted date 24 hours in advance but it is funny that he's like would you like to go to this party with me tomorrow she says no but she was already going i love it i mean dare dare i say iconic like iconic and i kind of stuff from jorinda you love i respect her for being like i need a babysitter you and like yeah why should he assume like well she'll be free she'll just come you know especially because for me she really lets us know how important hannah is to her and how important being a mother is to her so hannah hannah's number one yeah which i love it's very sweet very sweet now she talks about their first date richard takes her to tau which she hates it's loud and disgusting actually shuddered at the idea of being at tau for first date okay i don't what the fuck is how okay so maybe this is just an information gap but i was like tau as i understand it is like a nightclub there's one in vegas and then there's the one in new york and so i think it is just like i'm trying to think of a good comp i don't know imagine going to oh all the clubs in la are closed imagine going to a date in hollywood at a nightclub for a date and being like hello you're very wealthy but why are we here and everyone is 21 and drunk and i guess he was like she's so much younger than him that he was like i'll impress her with a hot night out buddy you overshot the age gap yeah you really did honey you have an age gap but she's a grown woman yeah she's 40 not 23 you're fine yeah and he then she says not long after tau richard invited me the met gala the met gala i nearly died but in the same hour he invited me he also shot himself in the foot within 30 minutes of me saying yes several dresses arrived at my apartment okay pretty woman. I called him up and pretended like I hadn't even opened them. I didn't want to give Richard the impression that I was a woman who needed to be dressed for an event because I wasn't that woman. I was familiar with how to appear at fabulous events. I'd been hanging out at Buckingham Palace. And so I said, Richard, I am not six years old. Do you not trust me? Do you think I'll wear jeans to the Met Gala? Really, this was a test. If Richard was an asshole, he would have dumped me right then. But he wasn't an asshole. I thought it would be a nice gesture, he said. But I don't care what you wear. I just want to spend time with you. I ended up wearing my own Alexander McQueen gown, which was made by Alexander McQueen himself. It was so on point. And so like question one, do you think this is another one of her rules? You must berate a man for sending dresses to your home. It's like half of me is like, oh, wow. What would it be like if this happens to me? I'm like, yeah, I read dresses, romance, squealing, squealing in my apartment. I'm getting dressed. You know what size I am? Oh, my God. Thank you so much. But then unless you got it wrong, in which case, then I guess I am breaking up with you. But if you got it right, baby. And then so I'm like, OK, so part one, I'm like, all right, I guess I don't know that I would read it that way that I'd be like, oh, he thinks I'm an idiot. He thinks I'm an idiot that doesn't know how to dress. That's where I was like, oh, she is such a woman of society. This is her being like, you might be rich as hell, but I'm on your level. Yeah, well, which is something I wouldn't have even have thought to do. no not at all but then for her to be like you think you're gonna swing your big dick with some dresses how about my own alexander mcqueen she pulls her own gun out at that point yeah and you're like wow fucking awesome and then a couple pages later she's like he bought bluestone manor for me so i'd have a mansion of my own and then i redecorated it my whole life and it's like okay that's the thing they didn't even have a kid together which to me i'm like kids are collateral which is a problem but you know where i'm like okay rachel what are we doing here that How toxic was that parent's divorce? Pretty bad. But I'm like, the fact that he was just like, yeah, just love you. Have a house. Yeah, and here's the thing. She loves being a society woman. Maybe this was built into the deal. It's also just who Dorinda is. Okay, let's talk about their wedding. So imagine, imagine everyone think you have 30 minutes later, gown delivery at your door. Your man going to buy you a house that's a manor on acres. Okay, what is your wedding going to look like? is it going to look like this? In the spirit of our water-inspired theme, we turned the entire restaurant into an enormous aquarium by installing projectors to give the impression that fish were swimming around the room instead of flowers. We had fish in glass balls filled with water and suspended from the ceiling over dining tables. and we covered the tables with huge Victorian-style vases, all of which were filled with fish. This is the most hideous thing I've ever heard. And what happened to the fish? I know the fish weren't taken care of. No, I was so concerned about the fish. I went, what's happening to the fish? And I was like, Rach, you're getting caught up in the details about these live fish that are hanging from the ceiling, which is insane. For some reason, I was like, actually, can you describe this a little bit more? why weren't there there's also a lot of photos that she provided i'm like actually give us a full spread of just this wedding show me just the fish wedding first off you have not written anything within your marriage or romance that would indicate that like fish should be the theme of your wedding also imagine what's the theme of your wedding fish fish where i'm like there has to be a million better ways to simulate underwater than fish in a bowl from the ceiling you just gotta be able to do it also just like get married at the aquarium where at least the ideas that they're taking care of the animals yeah yeah i don't think you needed to buy this many fish i'm so worried about what happened to the fish i'll be thinking about it for a long fucking time and i know that she was probably because i know she mentions his boat a lot and she's like we love the boat we had such magical times on the boat i'm like but that's a that's a maritime theme that ain't a fish thing you're correct and then later in bluestone manor she's a fish room that's decorated with like she's i always thought for some reason that dorinda had taste maybe from the way she dressed and i think women who sport a shorter haircut in the face of housewives who have 19 000 pounds of extensions on that kind of gives a level of chic or refinement that really made me overlook the fish theme of her life all right then everybody get fucking ready for it it has been a minute but here it is dringo dringo dringo great people like henry kissinger would pull richard aside at cocktail parties to pick his brain the best thing about richard though was that he had no heirs he treated henry kissinger the same way he treated the valet guy richard truly valued every person equally he used to say everyone has a lesson to teach you henry kissinger has once again shown up in a celebrity memoir and this time with the introduction great people yeah i wrote this is not a good sentence this is a war criminal who murdered lots did lots of murdering from the high tower yeah and wanted to pick your husband's brain about what kind of strategies he was going to employ to destroy other countries. Like, yeah, like, and Richard could help? Yeah, he was doing like foreign exchange, right? Like monetary foreign exchange. I was actually going to say, I need to look up like Richard Medley job. Richard was the chairman and CEO of the consultancy Medley Global Advisors, which again, evil sentence. That is a way to say, I do evil. A former Democratic staff speechwriter and congressional staffer. He was also a co-founder of International Economy Magazine and a partner at Soros Fund Management. She also writes basically what he did all day was geopolitical analysis. And I was like, destroying other people's countries. That's totally fine. Good thing great people like Henry Kissinger want to ask him questions about stuff and that he totally sees the value in someone like Henry Kissinger. And Dorinda, so do you. Great people. All right. So while she's married to Richard, she said she was asked to be a housewife, but says no. So she this is like a woman of society about town. They're launching the series and like Dorinda is the woman to ask. And she says no. Interesting. OK, so then she's like, it's time for me to decorate Bluestone Manor, which is where she grew up in the Berkshires. and this I don't think I really looked at the design of Bluestone Manor and all the episodes I've watched enough and I love upstate I love I do have like really wild over-the-top taste so when I remember seeing it I remember thinking I didn't hate it I was like oh interesting like I love that she made choices it was very maximalist to me then I read this in the book I wanted the vibe to be Frankenstein meets Marilyn Monroe. I covered the closets in silver foil wallpaper. I painted a hallway black. I even had the famous Douglas Little design, this amazing chandelier made of animal skulls and diamonds and pearls to hang in the black hallway. My house is full of surprises, it's also completely utilitarian. I'm actually aghast and I have crazy design taste. Like I hot glued fringe onto the bottom of every piece of furniture in the room I sitting in right now Okay So I nutso I mean like from the woman who brought you fish wedding brings you insane household I think so I do think so You tell me guys maybe someone out there is like Frankenstein is a great design decor. And I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to explain. She does call someone out by name, Marshall Watson, who's not a name I'm familiar with. Not that I'm super in the design world anyway. But I was like, you're not even going to give him a credit of some sort of like you would know him from also doing this. Okay, so So back into the book, she designs the whole house. And then very quickly is like, Richard has lost his son, his sparkle and his shine. And this is really confusing because she's like, I begged him to go to a doctor. And it sounds like he didn't for years. A long time. I mean, she said he turned yellow. So I'm like, we're at level 10. You're dying from the inside out. And you won't go to a hospital. Yeah, I would like to know about that. What doctor skepticism? What's the problem? Is this just like men are always like, I don't know, I'll die. Yeah, what? Don't intervene on me. I'll just die. Also, to have this much wealth that could pay a hospital bill. Dog, you have health care. Oh, my God. You. OK, so you probably have equity in a hospital somewhere. So she said, finally, when he lost so much weight, I had a total meltdown. And she said, Richard promised me he would go to the hospital if I took him from New York to the Berkshires one last time. So they like go on a trip together. and then comes back and he goes to the hospital and then it's quite confusing she was like and then just a litany of issues that never stopped and he remains in the hospital and it's like because i think you didn't go the first time yeah i don't i really don't understand what was happening but she does have a psychic moment where she wakes up one night and she's like we have to go to the hospital and hannah and her go in the middle of the night and richard is suddenly very clear. He's his old self. They have this great night together. And she just knew he was back to his old self. And then a few days later, they go back and he's starting to die. And there were no decisions like the operation was going to go terribly or he could be induced into a coma. She had power of attorney and says she makes the hard decision of like, this is the time. And she's sitting there and she says, out of nowhere, I heard this voice whoosh up in my body like a wind, I'm out of here. I turned to everyone and I said, he's gone. And then really sadly, horribly, we have our next Dringo where she says she was so stressed out in these three months he was in the hospital that she had dropped to 106 pounds, lists her exact weight. And then she said, as horrible as this may sound, I think I was relieved because the caretaking and worry and stress had destroyed her and she was losing her hair and Richard dies at 60, which is quite young. Very young. And she said I was a 46 year old widow. Yeah, this was a part. And when Hannah is born and the way she describes giving birth to Hannah, I was like, I think that's the most convincing thing I've ever read about, like becoming a mom. Not convincing, but I was just like, that's like she really described well what I imagine motherhood feels like. It was so beautiful and moving. And similarly about Richard's death, I think she captured her feelings and the emotions in the room really well because it is so overwhelming and the stress is very real. And then when you're stuck between two decisions of like, hey, do you want to let your husband die one way or the other? You're like, well, that's pretty terrible. And the stress of being in and out of the hospital and Hannah's doing finals from the hospital and watching Hannah to try to be a college student and also watch her stepdad die. Like those were the two parts of this book that I will walk away remembering because I think they were really, really well written. I absolutely agree. It's hard because you really learn about Richard and what their relationship was like post her writing about his death. You don't get to grieve as much with her because you don't know what's happening. And then afterwards, you learn that she picked his outfits out every morning she made all the appointments in his calendar she handled all the finances they were extremely codependent they were never apart for a moment codependent jump scare codependent jump i said wait what okay so richard passes and she says another psychic woman about four months after he died a well-known psychic named ann called me i'd run into ann at parties in washington for years she was a well-known character in dc and a longtime acquaintance of richard's she'd advise people like nancy reagan and jackie onassis i was scared to pick up the phone at first what if ann had something negative to tell me and finally she picks up and she says richard has been contacting me non-stop because he needs to give you a message and she said let me pause and tell you for that the first few weeks after richard died he was around i know how that sounds but it's true i could feel his presence and i thought he was there because he was struggling to move on to the next step i thought he didn't want to leave me but he had to so about two months into this i spoke to him you need to move on richard go soon after that i didn't feel his presence anymore he was gone this is the most dorinda thing i've ever heard where it's like that's how you told him to go yeah no she said you're scaring me now get out of here get out of here and i get i know i know she's in intense grief but the way it reads was like oh yeah stop hanging on my neck i do love how catholic she is there's like a bit of like at the beginning where she talks about like not quite numerology but she's like i'm a little superstitious and then throughout the rest of the book i'm like oh you are a religious woman very very also in your frankenstein maryland monroe house that's reading very old school design so she said and tells her richard wants you to know he loves you he also wants you to know that he's sorry for scaring you but he didn't want to go. He couldn't figure out why all those people were at the brick church. He wanted to be a part of it. He wasn't happy about leaving, but now he's transcended and he's doing great. He wants me to tell you that you'll always be his North last. If you ever need to talk to Richard, he'll be listening. So then I was like, Oh no, I'm crying. Oh, I don't know why, but somehow I am. And she said the do North thing was something they said privately to each other. She didn't know how he knew this. And like, it was just incredible. And also just the idea of like, if she ever does need him, like he's going to be there. Yeah. and then one paragraph later she wrote this when i told this story to my mother she reminded me of how when richard and i used to take two helicopters to hyena sport hyena sport that you know that's how that's said i only know it because of a vampire weekend song i'm doing culture by proxy where is it um don't ask me that i think somewhere in massachusetts I'm not doing a pickup because I really would just everyone just focus on when we used to take two helicopters to wherever he with his children meet with mine. We'd wave at each other in the sky. Her mom said, remember, you couldn't talk to him, but you knew he was there. It's like that now. Just think of him as being in the other helicopter. And so you're telling me that's not how you've always thought about death, Chelsea. first off is this an insurance thing like should something happen to one of us i'll die with my kid you die with yours oh why are we taking two helicopters is this a is there so many people and there's like a limit on hell no you know i need an explanation i bet you it's probably just fun what i'm kidding i mean i don't know but it's so i didn't even think about it i was just like well, I guess when you're that rich, you do take two helicopters and luggage. So we just think of each other as waving helicopters in the sky. But again, these are the details that I was, I knew he was wealthy, knew he bought her a house, knew he sent her gowns. But then post, you're like, wait a minute, every Friday you took two helicopters? Okay. Referring to death as helicopter in the sky from now on. Then she said, Richard and I used to have drinks at the core club about once a week. And John was one of the people we often ran into there. John was the owner of Madame Paulette, a well-known high end dry cleaner in New York. And she's like, one time I had borrowed a Roberto Cavalli dress. I spilled on it and he saved me. So then she's out and about and she runs in to John. And John's like, how's Richard? and she said, you didn't hear Richard passed away. John was shocked. Richard died. He died in November. John told me he was so sorry. Then he offered to take me out sometime. Let's go for dinner. This man said, your husband's dead? That's fine. Can I take you out to dinner? And she said, yes. Not far off from when her and Richard got together where Richard was like, you're divorced. And she went, uh-huh, you're broken up. And they went, here we go. Here we go. She said, I had no idea it would turn into a six-year relationship. John was the opposite of Richard in every way imaginable. If Richard was vanilla ice cream, then John was peanut butter ice cream. Got to tell you, Dorenda, those aren't opposites. That's not the opposite of vanilla. Why won't she say chocolate? Did someone be like, this would be weird? Also, she said that Richard was the opposite of Ralph. She was like, Ralph was very vanilla. Now she's saying Richard is vanilla. and John is peanut butter. You'd think she would go like strawberry confetti as a flavor. Rocky Road. Rocky Road. That's kind of an in-between. What do you mean peanut butter? I could put a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a scoop of peanut butter ice cream in one cup and I'd have a great night. Okay, those are two flavors that go together. When I'm talking opposites, I want like vegan lime sherbet and chocolate chip banana ice cream. And then you're like, that's a bad cup. They don't go together. Again, I'm looking at you, Ghostwriter. Somebody said Dorita straight on what opposite means. And then she's like, again, no details in this relationship other than on the show. Some people like John and some people hated him. And also they're over now. Well, and also he lived in Queens and that was a dirty place for her to be. She said that she wakes up in the middle of the night and she's like, I'm in Queens. This can't be right. And flees to her apartment. Yeah. She was like, it's fine during the day, but I'm not going to sleep in Queens. At night? At night? And then she gets offered to be a housewife when she starts dating John. And she's like, I'm a widower. I'm a divorcee. I'm trying to find out who I am in life because I was so codependent with Richard. She says yes to becoming a housewife. And then the worst chapters on housewives of any housewives memoir ever. You were supposed to drop some tea. You were supposed to share something the viewers would have interest in, didn't know. all she does is recap her greatest moments she talks about make it nice she talks about naming bluestone manor and then she talks about my favorite dorinda moment where she says and then there was the time candace bushnell author of the original book that inspired sex in the city she said there was a time candace bushnell asked me how i was doing and i said i'll tell you how i'm doing not well bitch poor candace was truly in the wrong place at the wrong time she had no idea what was going on nor could she have known that it would later become a part of an iconic moment on reality television which is like yeah that's great but like we already saw that yeah so what are you talking about she's like i miss being on the housewives i got put on pause i guess i made some mistakes drank too much but i'd love to go back had a nice time doesn't talk about any of the drama none of the fights she shares literally nothing and ends the book well i guess it's goodbye for now i hope you have enjoyed reading this book i did not i hope it has helped you know me a little bit better did not and i hope you can take away a few good lessons on life love work family and making it nice. Absolutely not. No, I think that was actually a big frustration that I was like, you can't have a book this light. And then at the end of a book called Make It Nice, there's not even a takeaway of like, and here are the things I've learned in my class ascension of how to make things nice. Here's what I've learned about, yeah, moving up in society, hosting, no tips on the whole book felt like, well, I'm just so lucky that I married rich, but none of you poors will ever get to do it. And that's such a shame. Like it's a lot of looking down on and I was like damn to not even put a recipe in there I don't care if it's fake oh my god well I do care I'll kill you for that but at least try she talks about how much work she puts into making everyone feel comfortable and welcome and there's gifts and there's and I'm like give us a tip on what that looks like but actually as we were talking Chelsea and you were like she had fish wedding I was like I actually don't need decorating tips from her I know I know I think dorinda is so fun she's such a fun character i have really enjoyed her in the past and this book just did not deliver her tone or style uh at all and but then again neither this is how she was on the traders so maybe she's just in a different phase let's do the book till test first question was the author vulnerable in the sharing of her truth no not at all yeah okay second question was it entertaining to read? No, no. And I'll say I read it in one sitting, but not because it was good because it was just over so fast. All right. Final question. You never know. You never know. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way? No, it did in that I got to come have this wonderful conversation with you about it. Yeah, but that doesn't count. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. You ready for this? Yes, it did elevate my life because it reminded me something that I forget all the time because, you know, we're both in Hollywood. We're both around tremendous wealth all the time. And it's just a phenomenal reminder. Never trust rich people, rich people suck just as much as everyone. This bitch had a fish wedding with billions of dollars. We already know that down with the billionaires, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just a phenomenal reminder. We already know class system is bad, but you can also know they also don't know fucking shit. about traveling or having a nice wedding. That's how I'll end it. That's a nice way to make it a little positive at the end, Chelsea. Just a tiny bit. Rachel, you have a gorgeous new brilliant podcast. And I know you played the book till test on your podcast. So you tell everyone about it so we can go listen to your episodes, love some new content, taking something nice during this very not nice time. Certainly. Yeah. My podcast is called Minor League TV. We watch shows and play back the like top moments biggest fights kind of do like an analysis of all the characters that you see this first season we started with summer house so we looked at summer house as an entirety so all nine seasons running it back looking at people's character arcs looking at their highest points lowest points we played the book till test with carl radke's memoir cake eater how'd it go the book till test the book till test on his memoir the book till test was very fun on his memoir it was a dunk-a-thon I'll tell you that much okay I like that I like that so feel free to listen to that up but yeah we are just finished our season with summer house as the new season is starting we'll have some like in between fun episodes just catching up on reality tv in general and then for season two we're going to be deep diving into love island uk season five also for everyone that you should all know that rachel is a hilarious fucking comedian I've seen her go up and you are so very funny. So go follow. Do you post your shows on Instagram? Oh, yeah. Instagram. I'm on TikTok. Drop that handle. Drop that handle. At Rachel Friedland. Get into it. Get into it. A big thank you to our senior managing producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer, Jordan Moncada, our sound engineer, Marcus Hamm, and our amazing associate producer, Jaron Padre. I also want to give a huge thank you to our incredible partners over at Thrive cosmetics and every plate. We will link to those brands in the show notes. Go check them out. Everything else we discussed is also linked in the show notes. And if you have questions, thoughts, comments, go to the Patreon, sign up. There's a free tier you can join. Leave a comment, chat with your fellow cookies. We will keep the book club continuing over there.