Speaker 1: Hey, if this is the first time that you've joined
me on this experience and this adventure, please visit arow
dot net A r r oe dot net. There's so
much more than just the conversations, the interviews, the movies,
the rockstars. Aro dot net A r r oe there's
a podcast for everyone. Hi Erro, Hello and good morning
you too. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Hi, good morning, ma'am.
Speaker 1: We're excited, well you have. You have every reason to
be excited because you're taking viewers to a place that
we've only assumed for so many years. And the reason
why is because when it comes to a Ponzi scheme,
we we know what hits the headlines, but we don't
get the afterlife, nor do we get the pre life
or the pre role. And you're you're taking us into
an area. Oh my god, Mallory, I'm praying for you.
I don't know how you even trust even me sitting
here right here.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: You know, it was definitely a journey to trust again,
and I did put.
Speaker 2: My trust in Rebecca and.
Speaker 3: Started the healing process through this process of three years
of filming this three years.
Speaker 1: Rebecca, did you know it would take that long because
I mean that's a lot of digging and making sure
that everything that you've got is authenticity and not clickbait.
Speaker 4: It was a deep journalistic dive. I'm really proud of
what our team did. You know, there were a lot
of people who hundreds of people who lost their entire
life savings in this Ponzi scheme, and so we felt
it really was our duty to figure out who was involved,
who knew what when we like, where are the two
hundred million dollars that are still missing? Where is that money?
Because there are a lot of people who could really
use it at this point. So and we told the
story this was an interesting Ponzi scheme because he recruited
his closest friend who a lot of business school with him,
and they had successful careers and finance and banking, and
so it was a really intimate story and we tried
to you know, I really wanted to tell the story
through his inner circle, the people who were closest to
him and went on this entire journey with him.
Speaker 1: Mallory, I mean, it's like you go back and you
revisit all of the friends and everything that they did together,
the airplanes, the boats, everything that was going on, and
it's like, I can't understand how you stay so strong
in a situation like this. It was all playing out
right there in front of you, and even Zach's friends say, hey,
we didn't see anything wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: You know, Zach was really good at making everyone feel
really seen and connected and appreciated and loved.
Speaker 2: But then he also was.
Speaker 3: Masterful at keeping his relationships at like arms distance apart.
So as much as you know we were all intertwined,
we also weren't. And how he we all trusted him,
and I now I witnessed that watching it back. You know,
he would tell certain friends certain stories, but then say like, no,
don't tell maw. You know, that's super weird.
Speaker 4: But like.
Speaker 3: People just did what he said. I don't know how
to explain it. It was very much more like a
cult like following that he had on everyone.
Speaker 1: Oh it's money, it's money, it's it's you're going to
do what we're going to do this party. We're going
to take an aeroplane ride to this. Oh I can
get addicted to this real fast.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, he provided quite a lifestyle for people around him.
Speaker 2: He was very generous. M hmm.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, Rebecca, I don't know if it's because Charlotte
is a banking city, but Ponzi schemes around here, we're
always getting involved with them. And the thing is that
I'm going into this with a different point of direction
because there are people that we know that that were
part of this Ponzi scheme and it's like, oh my god,
what is the reaction. I'm studying this as somebody who
has lived in a community that knows about these things.
And if you think you're gonna stop at one one series,
this is this could easily turn into several seasons.
Speaker 4: I see. I'm not sure I'm the one for that
this was my Ponzi scheme story.
Speaker 1: But listen.
Speaker 4: One of the things, one of the takeaways that I think,
I don't want to speak for Mallory, but we you
know that I hope people take away from this is
to really trust your instinct and if it seems too
good to be true, it is too good to be true.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: And how these really smart business majors, people who had
backgrounds in finance, didn't like the red flags. Weren't there
when you were making eighty percent returns in you know,
twelve months or nine months. It made no sense. And
so when something makes no sense, you really need to
stay up back and look at it and not get
caught up and greed and like, we're just not going
to think about it because we're making so much money.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Rebecca and Mallory
coming up next. The name of the show Hollywood Hustler, Glitz,
glam Scam. We're back with Rebecca and Mallory. You fell
in love with Zach as a teenager. What an innocent moment,
and then you continue to grow. Is that the reason
why the trust and the and the and the strength
of the relationship was so strong?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, absolutely. I mean I was nineteen i met him.
I was, you know, a naive young girl from a
small town in Indiana, and I met him, I fell
in love, and then things progress.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like we moved to Chicago because he had grad
school and I got into a competitive internship there.
Speaker 2: You know, I just didn't I always had a.
Speaker 3: Purpose like a job with him, and then we would
Then we moved to la together and I went to
hair school, and then you know, we organically grew our
careers separately, and we went from a you know, a
small apartment to a little bigger apartment, to a bungalow
than to a house.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't just an overnight thing.
Speaker 3: I think that's what people need to realize, is this
is a relationship for twelve years that started when I
was nineteen. And if you can take yourself back to
those naive years of like learning about the world and
growing as a person, and you're doing that with who
you think is your soulmate through the whole whole time,
there was deep levels of trust there. I trusted him
more than anybody in the world.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, the show we're talking about is Hollywood hustler, glitz,
glam scam Rebecca. When you get this close to a story,
how do you not become a part of the story
in the way because I just watching it, I'm emotionally involved,
and it's like, how did Rebecca have that separation between
church and state there to still be the journalist.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, you always keep a certain separation,
but I also really develop real relationships with the characters
who are in this uh in the series, because there
were a lot of really exceptional people who are involved
in this story. So it's it's a it's a balancing act.
Speaker 3: Zech was really good at picking people that were that
were good people, that they were like vulnerable people. You know.
He had a way to surround himself around himself with
a certain type of person.
Speaker 4: And it made for a great calling card when you
had these very wholesome but successful aspirational finance guys who
they go back, you know, way back with each other
and they're out raising money for him, and it was
very smart setup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but man, creating there's a there's a serious trigger
moment here because if you knew how many people over
the past four decades that I've talked with in the
radio industry and even today creating digital stations, I have
something that will change your life. And you know, today
I can say, oh, okay, get back to me when
you're talking real deal. But back in those early days,
if someone were to say that to me, I'm investing,
I'm going that direction. And thank god I have a
wife that sits there and kicks me in the knee
and says, what are you doing dude?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, we live in a society that really
places a lot of value on that. It's the American dream, right,
anyone can get rich, and so a lot of people
end up going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: So how have you reacted, Mallory in the way that
I know that when my my wife separated from her
rock star husband he got the band, she had to
go and start a new life. Is that the angle
you had to go to, is you, I have to
just start all over. I have to get all new friends,
I have to get in all new everything.
Speaker 2: I started.
Speaker 3: As far as far as starting over, like financially and
all that, yes, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2: I left that marriage with absolutely nothing.
Speaker 3: I moved back in with my parents in their basement
where I had.
Speaker 2: My one year old and three year old, and I
was there for a year.
Speaker 3: Until I could have enough money saved to buy a car,
and then eventually got you know, on government funding to
help with childcare costs because.
Speaker 2: As parents we know childcare is a very.
Speaker 3: Expensive and being a single woman that has nothing, that
was something I.
Speaker 2: Needed though to grow my career.
Speaker 3: So I started self teaching myself how to utilize programs
to try and get ahead, and did it one little
step at a time, and over the course of four
and a half years, I'm very proud of myself that
I've gotten to a place where I support my family
and my children by myself, and I have a career.
Speaker 2: That I love.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you know that's kind of.
Speaker 2: Where we're at now.
Speaker 1: Wow, ten minutes with you guys is not enough. Is
there a website where people can go to find out
more and to really because they're gonna, they're gonna come
to you. They're injured. They want to have answers as well.
Speaker 4: They should go to mal Well, go to Prime Video
and watch the series, and then they should go to Mallory.
Speaker 2: Wait are we talking about like women like connecting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think you should be on a speaking tour.
I think you should be on a speaking tour talking
to moms all over this nation because there's a lot
of single moms out there and even single dads that
are trying to survive and they need somebody who has
lived it. They've been to hell and they don't want
others to go back.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you know, I have connected with a lot
of women through this process, and I'm pretty determined to
turn this very painful experience into a purposeful one and
to be very vulnerable with people so they feel seen.
Speaker 1: Wow, please come back to this show anytime in the future. Mallory.
If you've got a message that needs to get out there,
even even if you know the show is long gone
and forgotten, which it will not be, the thing is
still reach out with your message of hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah that I'm just I just want to show that
you can rise from levels of skill that you didn't
think you could, but you can, and I promise you
you can.
Speaker 1: Wow. Will you guys be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much. You'd be brilliant too.
Speaker 1: Oh God, thank you for giving it back to me.
Heck yeah, thank you.