This is pod Populi Podcast for the People, the Great Love Debate. It's
the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debase.
Hi again, Everyone's Brian Howie. Welcome to the Great Love Debate,
the world's number one dating and relationship podcasts since two thousand and fifteen. I
am here in the very fine studios of pod Populi Podcast for the People.
I'm at the one in Palm Beach Gardens. I don't get here very much.
It is um. I recorded last week because I told you guys from
Scottsdale and it was a thousand degrees. This is five thousand degrees. This
is so give me the dry heat. This is terrible. All you Southern
people who are like, oh no, it's not that hot, it's really
hot. Um. A couple quick things before I get into what I want
to get into and who I want to get into it with. You guys
have been asking me when the new batch of live tour shows are going to
be on sale. They might even be on the website by the time you
listen to this. We've got City Winery in New York City, good Night's
Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina, right here in Florida, Boca,
the Boca black Box Center for the Arts, and the Tempe Improv in Tempe.
Those Sorry, I've been stalling. I have just been on the road
too much. I used to do like one hundred and fifty live shows a
year. It's been nine years. I don't I'm not gonna do that many
anymore. But I do the ones that appealed to me, and do the
ones that I'm contractually obligated to do, and do the ones that you were
really like, come to Boston, So I come to Boston, I do
this show, so those will be on sale. Shortly About a year ago,
I did a show that that I sort of addressed why I care about
quote unquote this stuff so much, Why I eight years into this podcast and
nine years into our live tour, I still want to talk about this stuff.
And so I really sort of laid out why it appealed to me emotionally,
intellectually, just a lot of levels. I just feel like this is
the one thing love dating relationships that everybody has experience with, everybody has an
anecdote on, everybody has an opinion on, everybody has pain from. It's
the one thing that you can grab any people from anywhere in the world and
have a conversation, and that conversation should be engaging to everybody involved in that
conversation. And so I sort of laid out because somebody had asked me at
one of our shows, why do you care so much about this stuff?
But that answering that question really sort of only brought it down to about five
thousand feet. I wanted to know what this stuff is. I wanted to
know what it is we care about, and I want to know why we
care about what that is. So I brought in a pro. She's laughing.
She's like, I'm a pro because she is sort of privately and publicly
dealt with a lot of this stuff, and she has a very popular podcast
that gets into this stuff and a whole lot more. You may have seen
her on Celebrity Rehab with her old friend doctor Drew back in the day.
You might have seen her on Millionaire Matchmaker with our not so good friend Patti
Stanger back in the day. That's another podcast for another time. She's the
host of the Misunderstood podcast. I'm not sure how misunderstood she is, but
we'll get to the bottom of that. Rachel, you can tell how are
you. I'm great, thank you for having me. So when somebody says
you obviously like I said publicly and privately, have been like I care too
much, or I care so much, or I really need this in my
life. What is it that we need besides the primal companionship? We always
say that we're wired to be with another person. It's more than a physical
thing. It is an emotional, chemical thing that we feel, really feel
the need to be in a relationship. Well, I think it's different for
every person. Some people derive credibility from it. Some people listen. Some
people don't love to be alone, but they just want the physical intimacy sometimes
and then want to separate completely after that. So I think for everyone it's
very different, and everyone their own version of what means something to them or
why it's so important to them. But it's the way they connect with other
people for sure, and to meet. For me personally, my relationships for
a long time was and I would get myself in trouble this way, I
think, and I've dealt with it a lot. But like I derived my
credibility by who I was with and if that person everyone wanted to know them
but they wanted to be with me. That made me feel loved and worthy.
I mean, I think everyone's relationship there's somebody. I'm somebody. Yeah,
yeah, And I think that that derived a lot from my childhood and
from you know, things that I went through very early on, and feeling
the need to be loved meant I was worthy, you know. So that's
my psychological issue with being in relationships. But I'm forty eight years old,
I'm still single. I believe in monoga, that's right. I believe in
love. I believe in getting married. I would love to have a family.
I want to witness to my life. But it's really hard to find
that. And I'm a shredder. I'm not great at it right, so
you know, it's something I'm still striving. It's really hard to find that.
But you know, as we say, the juice is worth the squeeze,
on some level, it should be hard to find that. Yeah,
we make it hard to find that. Sometimes we make it hard to keep
that. We make it hard to recognize that we do all of these things.
But that was a really good point you brought up at the beginning.
I need because I lack self esteem or I don't trust the love I was
giving from other people, or I don't love myself that somehow we need the
validation not from just this person, but from the people who see me with
that person. That really has a lot of layers to it that actually make
total sense. Yeah, I mean, I think it makes sense. It's
what I've been dealing with my whole life. I think it's gotten me in
a lot of trouble, but it's also made me understand. You know,
I suffered from love addiction. That's what I was on celebrity rehab from dealing
with. And I used to go on tour with Doctor Drew and all sorts
of shows to talk about the validity of it because some people don't believe in
it, and I believe that your problems with love addiction is what send stems
into a lot of tangible addictions like drugs, alcohol, and people don't see
how there's a correlation, but there really is. And it was very interesting
to me to find out about it and then to teach others about it.
Well. I mean, I think every addiction of any kind comes from a
whole or an emotional need that you're trying to fill. Yeah, I knew
somebody who had a problem with alcohol and he quit that and he became a
sex addict, of course. And I've never seen anybody struggle with such self
loathing and hatred as with this sex addict. He's just like, I am
ruining my entire life for these little sort of thirty second bursts of pleasure,
and the whole time it was I'm like, go back to drinking. Like,
it's really really hard. Love addiction. Yeah, a lot of people
probably say it's it's a made up term or whatever, it's a fake term.
But if you are addicted on an emotional level to this need to feel
connected, bonded, validated, any of those things, it's as real as
anything else. And it can be hard for people to function in their job
and their other relationships and their parenting, whatever it is for them. If
they get so emmeshed in someone else, that is probably wrong for them,
and they tend to have a bad picker. They tend to replace love for
intensity. You know, they're looking for the ups and downs, They're looking
for this toxic thing, and it becomes so overwhelming they cannot function as a
person right. They're picking the wrong people that make their lives unlivable in some
ways. And then you know, people get out of a relationship and they
treat it like a game of musical chairs and they better find a seat as
quickly as possible because they are floating without this life raft of both a connection
and the validation that you talked about. Yeah, and not only that,
when they get out of a relationship, it takes all their self value away.
So for a lot of these people that struggle with love addiction, they
cannot get up easy. You know, they cannot recover from losing this other
person because that person's took all their happiness and all their worth and that that
is the most stabilitating for a lot of people as well. Where where are
you from in real life? Where'd you grow up? Anchorage, Alaska is
where I was born. I lived there till I was five, and then
I grew up in New York City. Okay, that's wow, Wow,
that's a transition. Yeah, you know, New York City is an interesting
place. You know, I'm from New York. A lot of the listeners
are from New York. You can be what I call a bubble in a
waterfall where there's all this energy around you and you sort of can float through
an existence fairly isolated and fairly loan, and you really do have to try
hard to connect there. It is a little bit cold, it is a
little bit distant. Did you feel good about yourself at an early age?
When did you? And you're obviously beautiful, when did that kick in?
Well, I mean, I don't think physical you know, what you look
like physically really has a lot to do with women's self esteem. No,
but it gives you opportunities. It does give you opportunities. And by the
way, you know, I used to run nightclubs for a living in Vegas,
New York, the Hampton's, Saint Bart's, whatever, And I can
tell you that the heavier, unattractive women were the ones with the most self
esteem. They'd be getting up on tables dancing, and they would go home
with men at night. The models who were hungry, who were mean,
who didn't smile, They were the ones that the guys wanted to meet,
But they were not the ones that the guys fucked at the end of the
night, or you know, even got their number, because they were just
annoying, you know. And the fun girls who just didn't care because you're
getting something back from them, you getting energy back from them. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So anyways, to get back on what I was saying
being in New York, you know, I was just talking to somebody about
this today. The Housewives of New York, none of them are married.
All the other franchises, a lot of the women are married. New York
is the hardest place, in my opinion, and I've lived almost everywhere from
LA to New York. It's a really hard place to find people. And
you really can be and I learned this from working in the nightclub industry.
You could be surrounded by people but feel so alone. And I've suffered from
that for a long time. But it's also because I've really high standards.
Funnily enough, I had interviewed um Mama June that us. You remember her,
Okay, she just got remarried. She just got married. Now.
I literally was coming up with the questions for her, and a legitimate question
I had was give me your tips on finding love and getting married, because
I can't get myself married. Even if I threw myself at someone and someone
was like, you cannot ask her that that's ridiculous because she's picking someone who
has like a meth habit. And no teeth and right you've been married,
Ay, you can have a high both Menenda's brothers are married. Are they
vera kind of high? Yeah, I guess. But you know, you
could say I have a high standard, But are you making it because I
have a high standard? Then it's not about that. You're like moving the
bull's eye out of range so you don't have to deal with it. Maybe
you brought up a millionaire matchmaker. When Patty's done this show, she always
goes that there's no good man, there's no good everyone to blame the city
they're in, the people they're in, whatever, or I'm too busy or
I'm picky or whatever, because they don't want to take ownership of There are
opportunities and possibilities and people right in front of you who you probably could date,
and it's scary to you to go down that road. Probably I'm not
someone who's easy to get to know, which is my fault. I have
a lot of boundaries around me. I'm somewhat of a recluse. I don't
like to I mean, I love my home here in Florida. I don't
like to leave. I have a beautiful home. I love my dogs,
I have an eleven year old. I don't meet people out at bars.
I just would never do that. I don't. I do a lot of
online dating. I you know, it's just it's interesting to me being on
Millionaire Matchmaker. By the way, we could talk about that in a second.
But you know, I try so hard to meet someone. I really
do. But I probably to answer your question, don't go above and beyond
to pick the people that I really could meet, because it's not that I
find something wrong with them. It's just that I cut it off way too
soon. As Patty labeled me. I'm a shredder, right, and I'm
not good giving people a chance. And I've interviewed somebody who was on the
host of the Netflix series Jewish Matchmaking. She was a Jewish matchmaker, Eliza
ben Schalem, a wonderful woman, and she was like, listen, you
have to give people a chance. You don't know anybody after the first date.
You don't know this person. And my problem is I will meet someone
and I can immediately know if they're going to be a boyfriend to me,
you know, if we're going to be in a relationship. And that's my
problem, and I will get into a relationship with someone for three years and
not date anyone else, But like I don't. I'm like, I know
this person so well, they know me, they make me feel good.
That's like a red flag. I know now not to do that. Do
you say google me or don't? I never say google me? They usually
have help. Well, that's an interesting question. If they haven't, I
always have that. And if they haven't and I like them, there's a
lot of anxiety that goes on with oh, how am I going to tell
them this or how are they going to find out? Right? There are
plenty of times, even as of late, that people, before they get
into even meeting me in person, they will say, just so you know,
I know who you are, and I have no problem with it.
I think you've been through a lot. I think you're amazing. I'm so
excited to meet you. And then there are people that when they find out
who I am. And this happened last year, someone said I went on
on two dates with them, and then I spoke to them on the phone
and they said, you owe me an apology. I can't believe how you
have not been transparent with me. And I said for what? And they
said, you didn't tell me who you were, And I said, I
don't even know what that means. I mean, obviously I know what it
means, but I couldn't believe they had the audacity to say that to me
that I owed them an apology. And their thought was, you know,
why should I find out from taking a flight and seeing the documentary Tiger and
there you are. I should know that that's the girl I'm dating. And
I thought to myself, but it's not like you disclosed everyone that you've had
a relationship within the past or your biggest regret. Maybe it's not like you
put that out on the table either. So what are we talking about?
And not only that, you could make the argument and it would be valid
argument. This is not what defines me. And I'm trying to give you
the things that are who I am now that you deal with. If everybody
had to be like, oh, here are the ten thousand important pieces of
information, that's why when people make these little checklists, I like, I
need this, this, and this, Well, those are five of ten
thousand things you probably need. You don't know what's important to them, so
there's no reason for you to volunteer it. But it's probably something that somebody
no matter what, because it's relatively interesting or really interesting, depending on who
you are. They're going to have questions about do you bring it up over
the edamame, like when do you first say, oh, by the toy?
And when they do know, they do have a lot of questions,
which you know, it depends who the person is. But I really don't
keep listening, stop googling. You can do that. I have to show
you guys yet, but I don't feel the need to go into details unless
it's somebody I know that I like or I want to spend more time with,
and I feel it's important to let them know the basic facts, not
of what happened, but of just you know how I kind of want to
shape that conversation because of a sudden it's like, you know, have you
ever cheated on someone? Have you ever done something that you feel guilty about?
And then the whole world knows. Imagine what that's like, and then
you are defined by that forever. I mean, everyone makes mistakes in their
life, but rarely are you defined by it unless you go to prison for
it and some google it or whatever. You get to learn from your lessons,
hopefully and move on. But when something that big is the most talked
about story, not just in your area, not just in America, in
the world, and it's still brought up to this day, it's very It
is not easy. Why do you say it's a mistake, Well, a
mistake is I don't I'm not somebody who would like to define myself as having
affairs with people. So that is the part that you're the affair, you're
worth a married one. I was not the married one, correct, But
I mean it was I was the monster, so to speak. You know,
the mistress is always the most you're willing to participant in an adulterous situation,
and you know, at the end of the day, that's between them.
It's not great issue. And the issue was between the three of us,
not the world, right, so correct, That's also what was.
It became something I got angry about when people would ask me because I'm like,
that's really none of your business. That's my business. And you know,
I have never in my life cheated on someone I have been with.
I believe in monogamy, and people don't think they're not like, well,
well why were they in that? What? You know, what caused that
and obviously he was with fifteen other women. Obviously, you know I had
met him, and I knew that he had been because I met him when
I was dating Derek Jeter and Derek Jeter and I let him come stay at
well, Derek let him come stay at the apartment, and I knew that
he wanted to meet a couple of my friends, and you know, I
and I remember asking m Derek, didn't he just have a kid? He
was like, yeah, but that's not their relationship. So it was something
I'm not going to talk to him about. But you know, I knew
that there was there was no issue there from years before. It's a complicated
subject. This is a complicated subject. I got to take a quick break
because we got to pay for dates with Derek Jeter and a whole lot more
around here, I'm with Rachel. You could tell we're talking about what it
is that we love and why we love it. We will be back right
after this, and we are back. So when you say now you want
to be in this relationship, a relationship for fifty years, happily ever after,
I do. I believe in that we always say but before you can
define love, before you can find love. You need to define it.
How do you define it? How do I define love? Or how do
I define define what I want in a relationship? One thing at a time.
Okay, first, how do you define love? For you, love
would be something that is unconditional, that you really have no judgments about,
and you really care about that person or that things, feeling well being,
sometimes more than your own, and you look to always protect that person,
and you almost glaze over a lot of things that are bad. For example,
I love my dogs, I love my daughter. I love some of
my daughter's friends like that they're just incredible. You know. There are some
people that I don't even know that well. I love their personality or their
energy. I really care about these people who maybe are not my best friends,
but I just love who they are. And then there have been relationships
that I you know, I love that person, right, So that to
me is love, But that is different maybe than what I want. Internet
you bring up the unconditional thing, and the judgment thing is that because that's
really important to you get that back in return based on that? Is there
some guilt in natter? No know at all. I just think that what
makes relationships tough is that you know, it could be so nice in the
honeymoon phase for a little bit, but then it gets really toxic almost.
Sometimes you might love someone but then pick out all their negative things that bother
you, you know, and give them a hard time and nit pick on
stuff. And you know, I think that's what makes a relationship difficult.
So when you really love someone, I think you look over a lot of
that stuff because you're just like I love them. Like my daughter, she
could be a total bitch half the time. You know, she's eleven,
she's going eleven's thirteen, Yeah, more than half the time. Yeah,
and she's you know, can be awful. Yeah, but I love her,
so I have to laugh it off. I get mad, but then
that anger goes away in seconds, Whereas if I'm in a relationship, I
can hold on too that I can really let that fester, and then I
want to make them pay because they've hurt me. And you know, it's
well, one of the things it's going to be easier for you in your
forties and fifties. It's it might be the pool isn't quite as big as
during our nightclub days back in the day, But when you were in a
relationship or you were married in your twenties and thirties, at some point you
go from husband wife to mom and dad, and that is a completely different
dynamic in the thing which sometimes brings people apart as husband wife, it just
kills the bond of what got you together in the first place. You're still
a mom, But when you get into it in your forties and fifties or
whatever, you are sort of adults over that hump of needing that or or
having that wherever, and you can be like, this is my ship and
this is your ship. Can our ship go together and we can sort of
make this work. I think that has a good chance, you know,
a better chance to work at that age if you can find the person.
Because a lot of people, especially men, I'm said, in my ways,
this is the way I live my life, this is what I need.
And a lot of times I think it's not the responsibility of the woman,
but I think there's an opportunity for the woman to create an environment where
his confidence can flourish in a way that he will change in whatever way she
wants him to. And a lot of times it is harder for a woman
in their forties because you don't need us as much you can buy your own
ship, can do your own ship, so that the need of a man
has gone away a little, which makes him lose his hero thing that he
needs to play and all that kind of stuff. But if there's like you
know what, I believe you can enhance my life, my world, my
family, I think then he's willing to do whatever you wanted to do.
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think if somebody is a creative
to the situation, if they are an asset, so to speak, they
make you better, They believe in you, they love who you are.
That is a better relationship than sometimes you get into in your twenties and early
thirties when you don't even know who you are yet and you don't know what
you're looking for. So I the reason I think why I'm so picky at
this part of my life is because I know who I am. If someone
has any problems with something that's happened in my past, because that comes up
a lot, that's not the person for me. Because I know who I
am, and I know the friends that I have. They love me for
who I am. And I was a person before, I've been a person
after, and I think I think it's just really important too, Like you
said, find who you can be a foxhole with and they are going to
be an asset to you and not let you down. And for me also,
it's really important that I find a catcher. I am the man and
the woman in my life in so many situations. I've been through my mother
sending me to an awful therapeutic boarding school, the one that Paris Hilton went
to for a few months. I graduated from there. I was left at
the school when I was thirteen years old and did not leave till I was
almost seventeen. It was awful. You had to like dig a grave with
a spoon you had, I mean, horrible things happened to you there,
and it's now been closed for abuse. I you know, I've been engaged
to someone who was killed while we were engaged. I you know, no
one got me through that but myself. You know, I was in a
awful scandal and I had no one to turn to. My family and friends
were like, that's a bad look. I don't know her. I had
to get through that on my own. I've had to figure out crisis management.
And then my father died of a cocaine overdose when I was fifteen years
old, and I had to get through that. So I need to find
a man who is going to be stronger then I know will be stronger than
me in any situation. I can figure out anything. I can get a
reservation, anywhere, I can handle if someone hijacked the plane, I feel
like I've got it from little too big. So I really want a person
that I feel like can get me. Even though I like to handle things,
but I want to know that the guy's a little smarter. Will you
let us handle some things? I can join you play like I can't reach
that on the shelf, and hopefully that's good at that. I know that's
part of what you have to do. You have to give us an opportunity
to be the boy. I know you're right, and it's it's hard because
you don't even need a ride anymore. You know where you can fix your
own shit, you can buy your own shit. It's really hard for the
men. I used to say, for generations, we were shooting at a
ten foot basket. Now we're shooting at a twelve foot basket. We got
to become a better shot. But you have to be aware that you raise
the basket to get in your world because you simply need us less. Yeah,
well, I mean, I guess so, but I appreciate men.
I want to be able to lean on someone. I just have felt so
disappointed. I guess in the past that thought might be my issue. But
something really funny we're doing on my show is that we're trying to do things
in a different way than what we've been trained to. And now in our
forties, you know, we've gone a certain way. And everyone has a
type. Right, you go on an online dating site, you have a
type. You fill out all these check marks. So my producer Kelly,
we do this segment on Happy Hour. She's forty five years old. She
tells me all her dating stories, and we decided we announced that she is
getting married New Year's Eve of twenty twenty four, and the only catches we
haven't found the guy manifesting Yes, So we're manifesting it. We put her
on every dating site, we talk about every date she goes on. Now
she's visiting me in Florida, and we're going to go out every night and
look for different men. See what it's like online versus that bars. So
we're doing the whole thing backwards to see if it works. Hey, I
think that's got as good a shot to work as anything. Can you be
asked out at Target and somebody just go to Target? Whatever? I don't
like whole foods. I like publics. Okay, publics. That's a very
Florida thing. You can be asked out like some stranger, like, hey,
I just noticed the way you touch those melons. Would you like to
go drink? Sometimes? Yeah, if I didn't think that was a cheesy
line, Can I barbecue this? You know? Whatever? Yes you can?
And probably I would like that guy more because I probably look like shit
in the grocery store. I'm just being myself, and it does. It
takes a lot. We used to have to do that. Yeah, that's
right. So not to do play back in the day too much here.
But you're not me and you were not quite old enough to remember the studio
fifty four days. But the people who talk about those days talk about an
era that that was the greatest time that ever was the closest we have to
that and me and you kicked around the same sandbox back in the day for
a while. Was those La Vegas late two thousands, early aughts or whatever
a teens days. Explain what that was like, because I try and tell
people what that was like in that height of that nonsense before it all kind
of shut down, the lines and the cash and the right back. I
can tell you from the very beginning because I grew up from when I was
five in New York City. I went to an all girls private school,
Nightingale Bamford. The circle that I grew up in. My boyfriend, my
very first kiss when I was twelve, was Jason Strauss. His best friend
was Noah Tupperberg. They are the two guys their tao now but they opened
up Marquis, But before that, they started at Sweet sixteen. And when
I dated Jason when he was twelve, he had a box, a tin
box in his bedroom filled with cash. And it was because he was a
promoter and he did all these things. He was a young kid that promoted
all these parties and got kids to come in, and he promoted for Sweet
sixteen and he knew how to get people two places. So it started when
we were young and it was a lot of cash. Then he went on
to be a part of different nightclubs in New York and different things, and
then I moved to Vegas because of him. He was opening Tao, and
that was a completely different experience in the way that he was now a real
part owner of something big in a hotel. I came there maybe a month
before it officially opened, and he taught me. He's like, listen,
the women here are either strippers or waitresses. I don't trust any of them.
I was. I had just quit my job at Bloomberg News. He
knew that I kind of got it, and I was his friend for,
you know, years, since we were twelve, or actually we knew each
other since we were like six or seven. So he's like, if you
come here, I will give you a job and you can help me figure
this out. So I did. I went there and I stayed. I
became known as a first lady in a Vegas because we started dating again.
But I was taught a level of customer service that actually now it doesn't even
exist anymore because there's so much saturation of nightclubs. But at the time,
we were taught in a manner that no one knows this anymore. You had
to do outreach every day. You had to go touch everyone in the city,
from the cab drivers to the concierge to let them know that Tao was
opening or was open, and what the party was that week. You had
to bring The waitresses would get fired if they didn't bring in a guest list
of twenty five people. The hosts had to have ten things booked, tables
booked. And it started pa. Yes, well, it started with because
New York is much different than Vegas. Vegas is they'll take anyone depending on
what the price is. New York, even if you get in there's another
room, you're never getting In Vegas, you're energy. But New York was
crazy because you had to I mean, I worked with a guy that made
women stand on a scale to get in. I mean, that's how mean
it was. They would be like, you're fucking ugly, what are you
doing here? They were mean there. But that's not how it wasn't Vegas.
You could look like anything and come in and they loved it. They
love the money, they love the people, the amount of like people they
could pack in. So we started at charging tables of five hundred dollars a
table, and then when we really got into it, on those five five
hundred dollars tables, the minimums were five thousand yeah, and we were making
on New Year's they were making over a million. And I was the person
who cultivated, cultivated the first real bottle service customer that was spending two hundred
and fifty thousand, four hundred thousand a night, and that became somewhat of
the norm. Yeah. But also we would teach, sorry, we would
teach our staff to know everything about them. You had to know their wives,
their mistresses, what they like to eat, what they you know,
what they did, where they were from. And then you could they could
not leave at the end of the night without writing a thank you note.
So it was really done well. I mean it kind of changed back back
in the day nineties, used to be able to go out with you know,
a couple hundred bucks and do whatever. Yeah, the table, the
access, the bottle service, the VIP, it changed everything. Yeah,
we used to have to bring out another guy who so we had access to
the girls and like, you want to come with us, you're buying,
And he knew his role and he'd be like, Okay, I'm the guy
with the black card. I will pay twenty thousand dollars and I get to
hang out with you guys. And he was getting something at us and we
were getting something out of him, and everybody's getting free drinks and that just
it was like such a different world that people would be like, oh,
let's go to Vegas. I heard of this place called, you know,
Pure, and it's like, you're nowhere unless you are spending five figures right
right? And when I rules changed, Yeah, And when I worked there,
it was all cash. We were making almost ten thousand dollars in cash
a week and they told us, do not put in more than ten thousand
into your deposited whatever, because you will get flagged. So we put cash
under our bed for years. And it was only when Stevd from Pure got
I don't know if you had arrested or got to some trouble with the irs,
that they started to tax everybody. That's what happened to Studio fifty four,
the bags of cash in the ceiling like ultimately, but the amount of
money that people were making with the clipboards on the lines in those clubs crazy.
What are the appearance fees that people were getting to show up Kim in
Paris and Lindsay and everybody got just to go sit in a booth for eight
hours. It was insane with the publicity and the dollars that that would generate
was worth it. Oh yeah, it was more than they were paying the
DJs. Kim was getting two hundred thousand dollars to come sit and talk to
a guy named Joelo, who now is I don't know if you know who
that is from Malaysia that he was on the run and all the stuff.
But you know, we were paying a lot of you know, sort of
random celebrities at the time that we're just like in not social media but in
entertainment or pop news right to come be with these people. So it was
a very you know, very interesting. Now, how do you find is
love on your mind in that situation, because it's it's such a chaotic thing.
Getting a relationship there is sort of like you're taking yourself off the ride,
and the ride is such an exhilarating period of money and cash and people
and all that kind of stuff that it's like trying to have a relationship during
that time is hard. Well, it's interesting you ask that because I used
to say all the time, I am in a room where three thousand new
people come in four times a week Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
and there's no one that I that rarely throws me off, you know what
I mean. And I was dating Jason again. We had dated when we
were younger. As they said, we decided to date again there. We
ended up living together there, and to me that was great because I was
dating the owner of the club, my boss whatever, and he I knew
him, I felt close to him and bonded with him. I also was
highly aware of the trouble you can get in Vegas, Like I could have
dated anyone that came in every weekend, any celebrity that came in, but
that, to me, would have been it would have taken me out of
the game. I was so good at my job, so it was better
for me to be in a relationship with someone there. But I did,
like I did sort of have my eye out looking like could I meet anyone
else and fall in love and have someone almost like save me from this and
get me out of here, because I'm not going to live here forever.
And I really didn't meet anyone like that. I mean, I met That's
where I met Derek Jeter for the first time, but I didn't have any
interest in dating him. We were just friends, and I also found that
I became very someone everyone wanted to know there because I was the gatekeeper and
I was like their buddy and their Yeah. So I knew everyone on a
level where they trusted me. But if I ever crossed the line, that
would have ruined it. But they wanted validation from knowing you in the way
that you needed validation from knowing somebody else. It's it's kind of an icky
circle of life there, but that's sort of true. Yeah, you know,
and it's tough if you're dating somebody who runs one of those empires,
for lack of a better term, just the amount of women that they have
access to. That's why they always say Randy Gerbert was so successful in as
a nightclub guy and he ultimately married Cindy Crawford whatever, because he didn't get
caught up in the nonsense. He had the one and that was it.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Women would come to the front of the
club every night and be like, I'm here to see Jason, and I'd
be like really, and my host would laugh with me. They'd be like,
Rachel stop. But also men were coming to the club, most the
most famous men to be like I'm here to see Rachel, and like,
we just had to have a trust and he clearly was not going to do
this under my nose while we were there, and we're literally when we were
there, we were running a business like this was not us like trying to
have sex. Yeah, I mean I had a rule that I had to
go upstairs and party with everyone. The waitresses knew they had to put diet
ginger ale in my champagne glass and they had to put water in my vodka
glass. So illusion. Yeah, the illusion, and the whole thing was
an illusion. Jason took his job seriously and definitely flirts because he knows because
he knew he had to. I definitely did as well, but I also
had very good boundaries. Yeah. Yeah, it's part of the show.
All Right, I'm gonna let you plug your podcast in a minute, but
before we do, this is your first time on this podcast. We play
something called worst date or first date, So you have to have to either
give us the absolute worst date you've ever gone on or the absolute greatest first
date you've ever gone on, your choice. Oh, I wish you prepared
me for this before end. Okay, So I met Jim Norton on Bumball.
Do you know him, the comedian? Yeah, And before I got
together with him, he said that something was wrong with his elbow and so
he had become vegan or vegetarian, I don't know, wasn't eating certain foods
because he couldn't work out, so he was trying to slim down. This
is what we were talking about on text before he met up. And then
also I had I owned a store at the time, so we were talking
about clothing or whatever, and he said, oh, he asked me about
my feet, like if I was walking around in heels. I didn't think
anything of it. He's like, well, how are your feet? Send
me a picture of your feet, So I did. I didn't think anything
of it. So anyways, I meet up with him at this like vegan
restaurant, which, by the way, even on my bumble now it's like
I won't date Trumpers or vegans, like it's super annoymous today. So we
go to this vegan restaurant. We're eating all this disgusting stuff, but I'm
pretending I like it. And I finally and I realize as we get through
this, he has a foot fetish. Now I don't know if you know
this about Jim Norton, because I think it's kind of out there now.
He has a major foot fetish, so like during dinner, he's like,
like a Quentin Tarantino, can't I see your feet? You know? Do
you let people lick your toes? And I'm like, We're at a vegan
restaurant talking about feet. It was so uncomfortable. But he's so nice and
so funny. I really like it. But I knew the date was going
nowhere because, as I told you earlier, I can spot with him the
first five minutes if I'm going to date this person. So here's where it
gets really embarrassing. I kind of wanted to get out of there and leave.
My store at the time was like a block away, and I was
riding my bike to the store every day. It was like five blocks away,
and it was the middle of summer. So I'm like listen, oh
and I had and I had heels on, so I'm like listen. He's
like, can I drive you home or get put you in a cab and
take you home? Like, actually, I rode my bike. I'll you
know, I'll just walk over there. He's like, well, I'll walk
you to your bike. So we go to the bike and we're standing from
the bike kind of waiting to say goodbye. I'm like, this is my
store, blah blah blah. He's like, okay, so where's your bike.
I'm like, it's right here. He thought I met a motorcycle.
Meanwhile, it was a bicycle with a baby seat on the back because my
daughter was like three or something, and I had to take my heels off
and put flip flops on. And then he's like, this is the greatest
date I've ever had. This is so random. And then like the Wizard
of Oz, I had to bike away from him with the baby seat behind
me. He's like, no, I'm watching you bike off because this is
just too hilarious. And we never spoke again. He never called me,
so at that point I was like, wait, I want him to love
me because I feel like such a loser, so he has to call me.
I felt so unsexy taking off my heels getting on this stupid bike when
he thought I was that cool that I had a motorcycle, So that was
a pretty death Well how are your feet? My feet looked fantastic. I
used to know this guy who had a foot fetish, and he subscribed to
this magazine called Well Healed, and he was like, he would go up
to random people and it's like, what is those like an eight and a
half? Like it was so weird. But part of me, some of
these fetish people that I've met, they're into that more than I'm into anything,
and part of me's jealous, like they have what they love and they're
passionate about it. So maybe we're the weird. Yeah, I don't know.
All right, tell everybody about your podcast and where to find you please.
It is called Misunderstood amiss Understood with Rachel you could tell you can find
it on Apple, Spotify and where you get your podcasts. I would love
for you guys to tune in and listen. This was good. Thank you
as far as us, not just Misunderstood, but this podcast too. Please
like, share, follow, and review this podcast. You're reviews me a
lot in the podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email, Great Love Debate at
gmail, gmail dot com. If you have questions thoughts for me Rachel,
or you want to send us a picture of your feet, have at it.
The aforementioned live tour schedule. The tenth season of the Great Love Debate
World Tour. I don't know what's on there, but by the time this
drops will be some on sale. Go check that out because, as always
at the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love. See you next
time, Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate, the Great Love
Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.