Hosted by Stephanie Podolak
and Tamara Robbins-Griffith.
E39 - Luminous & Voluminous
Curl Next Door Episode 39 - Featuring Chadwick Boseman, Flau'jae Johnson, Benjamin Brown, Jeremy Allen White, Selena Gomez and Josh Ostrovky (AKA The Fat Jewish)
Hosts: Stephanie Podolak and Tamara Robbins Griffith
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[intro music]
Stephanie and Tamara: Curl Next Door!
[sound of doorbell]
Stephanie: Hi, Tamara Robbins Griffith.
Tamara: Hello, Stephanie Podolak. Welcome everyone to Curl Next Door Podcast. The podcast where we talk about curly hair. And
Stephanie: We talk about curly hair, people with curly hair, curly hair issues, all
Tamara: Curly hair events,
Stephanie: curly hair events, products.
Tamara: Yeah, all the things. All the things that you might be interested in if you've gone through your life with curls, coils, waves, some texture up on top of that, head of yours.
Stephanie: That's right. thanks for joining. If you haven't yet had a chance to check out our Patreon, we would love if you did. This is a labor of love for Tamara and I, we don't make any money off of this. But there are some expenses, so if you'd like to support us with just a small donation, we would be very grateful.
You can find us at patreon.com/curlnextdoorpodcast
Tamara: and we thank you. And if you don't give us money, that's okay too. We're here for you and we have some great bios today we're gonna tell you about. but first, Steph, we've been meaning to chat about some, hair product controversies that have bubbled up. And, uh, I find myself a little bit paralyzed by it in a way.
Stephanie: Yeah, so I've been finding a ton of information about the Olaplex scandal. Have you ever used Olaplex Tamara?
Tamara: I have, and in particular because I color my hair so well, really specifically, because, you know, I've been told by various stylists over the years, it's a miracle product. It's gonna help with damage from bleaching. It's not inexpensive and that's one sort of barrier. This little bottles around like 35 or $40, so I don't buy it all the time.
But I had previously used Olaplex 3, at least went through a couple of bottles over the past, you know, Five or six years and recently got a fresh bottle. Because even in the curly hair groups that I'm in on Facebook, like a lot of people say Olaplex is great in particular for, that bond repair for color treated hair damage or even just damaged hair in general and specifically for like looser curl patterns and waves.
Stephanie: Yeah, so to your point, you have to really want this product, the price, price points are an investment. And like Tamara said, the product, it's a system and there's all these different kinds of products in the mix, and they're supposed to help with hair repair, especially if you've got color damage or heat styling damage and that kind of thing.
And uh there's this lawsuit. A ton of people have been complaining that Olaplex is making their hair fall out or is causing massive irritation to their scalp. And if you go to the Olaplex website today, the first thing you're gonna see is this headline at the top that says, Olaplex products are thoroughly tested and do not cause hair loss. So it's clearly a big deal, and it's obviously tarnishing the reputation.
Tamara: I mean, there are sort of controversies where people are complaining that they've had negative effects from the hair product and you know, you just don't know, like, is it, is it actually from the hair product? Is it an allergic reaction to certain ingredients that maybe those people shouldn't be using?
Is it something else? Like, is it, uh, I'm not a scientist. I, I'm not sure if you know that, but you know, how do they describe it when it's like, is there an actual correlation? Correlation versus causation? You know what I mean? Like, is it just a coincidence that you were using this product at a time when something else was happening in your body?
Stephanie: But to your point, is it just ev like there's an ingredient in it that doesn't work with everybody and it just, maybe it's a common ingredient that doesn't work. What was your question though?
Tamara: Well, my question was, is it like correlation or causation, right? Like did the product cause the specifically cause this reaction? Because of either an allergy. So if you're allergic to something, maybe just stop using it or it's an ingredient that maybe shouldn't be in a hair care product. I don't know.
Or is it, you know, I've read some things that are like, well, a lot of people are having like their bodies are different, their immunity, their reactions to things post covid, and also some of these symptoms like hair loss could be like part of long covid.
Stephanie: yeah, it could be. so apparently the product contains, an ingredient called lilial, which is a chemical compound. And this may be related or unrelated, but it was in the E.U.. They mandated this ingredient be removed from products across the cosmetics industry because there were concerns about its impact on fertility.
And I haven't heard about people complaining Olaplex has impacted their fertility, but it sounds like there's a lot of ingredients in there that are causing some problem.
Tamara: Hmm. And when did the EU restrict these? Is that like a new thing
Stephanie: Um, they said the EU mandated the ingredient be gone by March, 2022.
Tamara: okay. So fairly recently.
Stephanie: yeah. And then plaintiffs have said Sephora, who lists all the ingredients, they removed lilial from the ingredient list in summer of 2021, but that Olaplex did not actually remove that chemical until February of 2022 so they're trying to burn through the inventory instead of recalling them.
Okay. And then the issue with the allergy is the product contains panthenol, which is a form of vitamin B5, and that's what's causing the allergic reaction, including dermatitis. And sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid, which form a product called benzene, which is a carcinogen.
Tamara: I have a bottle upstairs. But the thing is like for people who aren't allergic or don't have a reaction to those products, like. I don't know, like I've used this in the past and not had an issue. Right.
So do I throw it out and stop using it? Or do I figure, oh, maybe I'm not sensitive to those products and it's okay cuz it's still gonna be good for, it Sounds like there are a lot of issues with the scalp, but maybe it'll be good on the hair.
I don't know.
Stephanie: I don't know if you can just do it on the hair without
it touching the scalp and if there, if there's a couple ingredients that are a carcinogen, I would be very concerned about that. They're also saying, There's other ingredients in the product that cause the hair follicle to clog. But I mean, there's tons of hair products that do that, and it's causing dermatitis and inflammation.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And the other complaint is that the company has been very dismissive of these customer concerns. And they're just saying hair shedding is normal. But I think if people are, you know, raising the alarm, it's probably because they're having an abnormal amount of hair.
Tamara: Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, when I went, I went down a rabbit hole reading just because I had a bottle in my shower. You know, I went down a rabbit hole of reading people's complaints and it's like, oh my God, is that gonna happen to me? But, It hasn't in the past. And similarly, which now I can't remember cuz this is, this is a few years ago, but I think when we launched the podcast, you and I were both still using Deva Curl.
Now there's so many more products to choose from, but I never had a problem with it. And then they had their complaints and lawsuits and so on and so forth. So you wonder, I don't know. You know, it just, it, are there products that are go and there's other lines. I mean, we don't have to get into every line that has seen complaints, but, there's other product lines that I hear people saying, that's really bad.
F it's gonna do damage to your scalp, don't use it, it's garbage, blah, blah, blah. And, and then they're products that we see all the time in the drugstore or the store. It's like people, I mean, I know when it gets to a class action lawsuit, It's a different level, but how much of it is actually these aren't good for you, none of us should be using them.
Versus maybe certain people have a reaction because, you know, even when we talk about carcinogenic ingredients and you know, I'm all for kind of sort of natural products and you know, clean ingredient. To an extent, like there are a lot of things in our world that are carcinogenic, but in, if it's in something in such a small amount, it's not gonna be harmful.
Stephanie: Yeah, and I mean, buyer beware, like you should do a bit of research before you put anything in or on your body, but you do put good faith in that the company has done this research, but I think I'm, I keep learning over and over again that corporations, and I'm sorry to say a lot of American corporations, I don't know if O Olaplex is American, I'm assuming it is.
They are their own watchdogs. And so you can't trust it. You have to do your own investigation, but I'm with you. Sometimes product ingredients just don't suit your own DNA makeup. I had that issue back in high school. I used a Body Shop product that was terrible. It caused all sorts of scabbing on my scalp,
but it's Body Shop, it's like, you know, organic and clean and all these things, and it didn't matter.
There was just something I was allergic to in the, in the product. So it.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And no slight against Body Shop. It's a beautiful store, but just wasn't the right fit for me. So it could just be, there's something in this product list that
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: is an allergen for many people who use it, but not all. Cuz your experience was fine.
Tamara: I think so. But then I'm like, Was it fine? Did I lose extra hair and not notice it? Like, you know, you should I email them and see if I can get a refund? Because this purposely, because it's not inexpensive, but also that, that people have touted it as like a miracle product. And then I've only ever used Olaplex 3 from their line.
So I don't really know anything about the other, the other products. And if there were certain product. You know, not everything in their line contains the same ingredients. Are there certain
products that were more damaging to people? Like was it the shampoo and conditioner or something that were more damaging to people versus maybe the product that I was using that I didn't notice anything?
I mean, we're saving a certain hairdresser that you and I both know, which we're gonna talk about in another episode. You know, she used to use Deva Curl on all her clients and never had an issue, but stopped, carrying it in her salon because, People were nervous and people were scared, and her job is to make sure her clients feel happy and relaxed.
And she said she'd never noticed a problem, but when these kind of controversies come up, like you react to it.
Stephanie: Yeah, and it's tricky because you don't wanna be part of a witch hunt, right? And like this is, if the rumor mill starts spinning and it's not proven, you have to be really careful. Cuz I would, I wouldn't want to participate in taking down a company if it was legitimate product. You know what I'm saying?
It's kind of a bit of a moral dilemma. I we're just reporting on what the news is
Tamara: What's happening? Yeah. This is just what's happening out there. We
don't have
all the
Stephanie: it's, that's right. We don't have the answers. We don't know if it's truth or fiction or, maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe it just doesn't work with some hair types or scalp types.
Tamara: Yeah. Anyway,
let us know if you have used Olaplex or Deva Curl and you've had issues or had no issues and what products you've tried and, and what you make of this situation and. how you decide when to stay away from a particular line.
Stephanie: That's right. Okay. And then Tamara, you had some other newsy news.
Tamara: Oh, newsy news. this just bubbled up in one of my Facebook groups. It's actually not in super newsy news right now cuz I think this, there were some articles, um, that kind of bubbled up, you know, about a month ago. I don't know if you know, I think she's a comedian Elyse Myers.
Stephanie: No.
Tamara: She's actually a podcaster and comedian. And she has a huge following on TikTok. And actually my husband said, oh yeah, she's great cuz he sometimes knows what the young people are listening to and into.
Um, but what's interesting about her is she's, she's cute, she's got. Possibly similar hair type hair to you. Um, she's got dark brown hair and it's kind of like a loose curl and she decided at some point to switch over and just embrace her natural hair texture and wear it curly. And her, her fans and followers freaked out.
Stephanie: What.
Tamara: People were like, What is happening because she has, I guess, let me see, over 6 million, I think, followers on TikTok. in any case, so this is about a month ago, but she, um, she shared a video. Or there was a picture of herself walking the red carpet at the Podcast Academy Excellence in Audio Awards.
And um, so she's, her podcast is pretty big. I think her podcast is called Funny cuz it's true.
Stephanie: Okay, and what's it about?
Tamara: um, Hosts. So she sits down with her favorite creators, friends and comedians to find the stories that have stuck with them and changed their lives in small ways.
Stephanie: Got it. Okay.
Tamara: So that's kind of her podcast. Anyway, so she, she decides to make a change with her hair.
She walks down the red carpet, posts this picture. Um, she's got her hair in kind of a, an updo. And then people were critical of her. And she posted a follow up video that, you know, has probably like a million views now, and she, she says in her follow up, follow up video, the amount of people that have made it their life's mission to let me know that they do not like my hair is so incredible.
Stephanie: Wow.
Tamara: Yeah. And, and so, um, she also, there were, I don't know if this is on Twitter or whatever, but someone, one of her other fans then said, It was a shock, but after a few days, we're here because we want Elyse, and whatever hair you have that day is part of you.
Stephanie: Yeah, no kidding. Mind your own business.
Tamara: she responds to that. She says, please imagine someone telling you that your natural hair is a shock.
And it took a few days, but they've learned to accept it.
Stephanie: Yeah, you know, it's great that she's a comedian cuz she can just turn this into comedy gold. I'm sure like if she does stand up, I can just see this becoming like a whole
Tamara: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if she's like a traditional standup,
like she's very, she's very Gen Z. She's probably in her twenties. I don't know a lot about her. I'm not doing her bio right now. Maybe I should have saved it,
Stephanie: No, no, no. It's good. Or you could
do a bio another
Tamara: the news another time. But yeah, she has, she has more than 6.3 million followers on TikTok, so I think that that's like where her comedy kind of lives is between TikTok and the podcast.
I mean, maybe you get to a certain amount of fame and then you can do sold out shows and stuff too. Um, but she, so she was interviewed by People Magazine. She talked about the fact that she was bullied as a child and teased about her hair. Um, and, and I don't know, I think she has a, a son now. Maybe she's in her thirties.
And she wants to just kind of be herself and not feel like she has to change herself. And probably she's busy as a mom and maybe spending a bit less time. Like I know it takes time to style your hair curly, as we've talked about for hours and hours and hours on this podcast. But just interesting that, you know, she doesn't wanna flat iron her hair all the time now.
And I think historically, like if you. If you Google her, you can see tons of pictures of her with straight hair. Right? So it's, it's just interesting, when you, for people who make a big change once you're in the public eye, right?
Stephanie: Well, like we talked about Felicity,
Tamara: Oh,
right.
Stephanie: of our very first episodes. Honestly, people. Get so attached and it like, it's so funny when you dissect it from a psychological point of view, like what's the, what's the problem? It's not your body.
Tamara: Yeah, it's not your body. But then often then on the flip side of it, like cuz I think it's great that she's kind of just trying to be herself and speak out about it. And she got all this flack so she was interviewed by People Magazine, but you know, it is like a lot of that is kind of rooted in racism.
And then there's communities who are like, okay, but. You know, it's funny cuz like a white woman talks about it and it's a big story and it's like, but there's a lot of hair discrimination against black women constantly.
But to be, to be fair to, to Elyse Myers, like she's speaking about her own experience, right?
Stephanie: Absolutely. Did we talk about the the Crown Act that Dove is doing in the US
Tamara: no, you were gonna talk about that. We may have mentioned it briefly, like as in part of one of the bios one time, but
Stephanie: yes. I mean, it's just a, it's just a perfect segue to what you're saying, like when it comes down to racism, the Dove, which is always, I mean certainly in modern history, has been doing some great work to try to break down stereotypes and just be real.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And in the US they're trying to get states to pass something called the Crown Act, which basically is trying to help women avoid discrimination in the workplace about their hair.
And so it's mostly about black women and the different types of hair that they wear. Because we've talked about on the show, um, there's a perception of lack of professionalism if they wear their natural hair or if it's in braids or. Whatever it is that they wanna do, which is so part of their culture to switch up their hair.
I mean, anyway, so Dove is trying to campaign on their behalf and make sure that it's illegal to discriminate against people's hair as it should be. And so it's, it's making waves,
Tamara: Mm-hmm. Literally.
Stephanie: Yeah, literally making.
Tamara: and then just to add complexity, cuz I love to throw wrenches into everything. I've seen it discussed too in some of the forums and it's like the Crown Act is so important and it's very positive what Dove is doing in that. Arena and then a lot of things to do with, you know, body positivity and, and self-love and acceptance within that brand.
However, is it owned by Unilever? I can't remember. Right. So then they also, at the same time, like Unilever sells, like skin bleaching kits for black women to lighten their skin tone. Right. So it's like you, you know, it's, it goes back to this thing of like major corporations, right? Like do they really care or is it all like brand marketing?
Stephanie: This is an excellent point and good for you for bringing it up because ultimately this is a marketing campaign for Dove, right.
Tamara: Right? Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: They've figured out this brand platform, this brand promise, and they're, they're using all their levers to roll back up to that.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: But it contradicts other, you are right, contradicts other corporate work that the company's doing.
I, it's really interesting.
Tamara: And so it goes back, I don't know if it's kind of like, do you separate, how do you tease out the good from the bad? And then what do you do with it? Right. And when we talk about sort of, You know, I don't know boycotting brands or is one thing, but like when you're deciding whether the impact of like an artist, like do you separate the art and the artist?
If there's some art they've created that's like really important and wonderful and beautiful, but then they've done other things that are not good. Right.
Is it kind of the same as. There's a billion examples of of art, even in Picasso, right? Like there's modern day and historical examples of that.
Do you, how do you, like, do you support it or not? It's different, I guess if it's modern day, you can support them in a way that they will gain financially from it versus not, right? But,
Stephanie: For sure. And what do you do when it's so historical that it's really changed the ripple of everything that's come after ? Picasso's an excellent example, but so are some former politicians from the 18 hundreds or early 19 hundreds. That turns out that they were slave owners or antisemitic or racist, they may have done really great work at the time.
But now with hindsight, glasses on, they weren't, they weren't, uh, good citizens relative to today's description or definition of a good citizen.
Tamara: Yeah. And some of it is just gonna be, your own personal line and your own, like what's important to you as a human, right? Like I, I know lots of people love Roald Dahl because he wrote some very creative work. I can't get past the anti-Semitism,
right? So I don't really like, It makes me feel uncomfortable.
No. Am I gonna let my kids watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Sure. It's a good movie, but like, mm. Kind of like, I kind of don't wanna support his family. I think he's no longer alive, but there's, you know, the family controlling all the, the content and everything. I don't know. We all have to make our own decisions, right?
With the information that we
have, and
Stephanie: right.
Tamara: it's just part of the complexity of life.
Stephanie: It really is. And with the good, there's the bad. I know.
Tamara: Yeah. Yeah. That's
like end curl next door.
Good morning, curl next
Stephanie: Yep
Hairy issues.
Tamara: they're, they're hairy, but you know what, it's, it's what's, it's what's interesting I think about the world of. curly, coilly, wavy hair is that there's so many layers to it, right?
Stephanie: Yeah, it's complicated.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: Anyway, we have a really exciting episode today. We have a bunch of mini bios. Yay. So fun little
bite sized
biographies.
Tamara: all these wonderful characters and, and people in the world who, who bring us a lot of joy and interesting stories.
Stephanie: That's right. That's right.
Stephanie: Do you wanna go first?
Tamara: oh, okay. I'll go first. I'm gonna tell you a CND who has touched the hearts of millions and means a lot to a lot of people, and his name is Chadwick Bosman.
Stephanie: Uh, yeah. Good
Tamara: So, Chadwick Aaron Bozeman was born November 29th, 1976. He's just a couple.
He, if he was alive, he would just be a couple of years older than me, and he passed away on August 28th, 2020. So for those of you who don't know who he is, he was an American actor and had a career for a couple decades. you know, receiving lots of accolades, including two SAG awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Critic's Choice Movie Award, and a primetime Emmy award.
And an Oscar. he studied directing at Howard University and he had a career that started in theater. So it's interesting, like sometimes you forget because I'll get to it, but you know, he's most known, like his mass breakout was as Black Panther in the Marvel movies and. , you know, you see these superheroes, , but it's interesting when some of them like trained classically in, in theater directing you.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For.
Tamara: Some of these actors who wind up in a big budget blockbuster superhero movie, have serious acting and directing chops. so he went to Howard and he won some awards when he was young there. Um, he, he received a nomination in a, a Jeff Award nomination for a play, um, that he produced direct. Acted in, I can't, I don't have that detail, but this is a mini bio, so it's kind of high level.
he transitioned to the screen and his first major role was on an NBC drama Person's Unknown. But his breakthrough performance, in Hollywood was playing baseball player Jackie Robinson in a biographical film called 42. So that was in 2013. And he also he was portraying these historical figures, he as James Brown in a movie the following year called Get on Up.
And. As a young Thurgood Marshall in the movie Marshall in 2017, so I don't, it's interesting, like, I don't know what drew him to these historical characters or if it's kind of part and parcel of like just sort of a smaller pool of black actors in Hollywood who are kind of getting cast in these roles. . I don't know if it's like a tokenism thing, but there's some kind of racism built into it.
Like there's not enough other roles that will cast black men as other than these famous biographical roles. I'm just trying to kind of peel some onion layers back, but I don't know. I mean, it could have also been just his, he was interested in, in that history. Where he really broke through is, as I said, playing the Marvel Comic Superhero Black Panther in the MCU.
And so he was in a few different movies and part of the reason I chose him for this episode is because in my family it is very hard to land on stuff that the four of us are all interested in watching. I'm just gonna say movie night can be very stressful in the Robins Griffith household.
Stephanie: But Marvel movies, how do those.
Tamara: Yeah, we, we usually can.
I, I still only wanna watch the good Marvel movies cause some of them are like, you can go by Rotten Tomatoes ratings, like some of them are not so great and some of them are, are pretty epic with decent acting and storylines and, directing and, and writing and whatnot. So I'm not interested in watching them all, but there's a good like, 50 to 40 to 50% of Marvel movies that are pretty decent.
And we've been watching them in chronological order of the M C U. So even though Captain Marvel was released later, it was one of the first ones we watched as a family.
Stephanie: Oh, you're doing it backwards. , is that what
Tamara: Not backwards. Not backwards, but like chronological order of when things happen in the Marvel universe. Right. If that makes sense. Um, in any case, uh, so, so Chadwick Bozeman is in these movies that I've been watching with my family,
we have not seen the new Black Panther that came. You know, without his character in it, we haven't seen that one yet. So he's been in a few of them, including Black Panther, obviously, as well as portraying Black Panther in some of the Avengers movies. and it was really, he was the first black actor to headline an M C U film, so he was also named.
2018, time 100. So I think what's super meaningful is for little kids who like superheroes that they could see themselves represented on screen. I think he, he touched a lot of people. I mean, Black Panther was a great movie and had an amazing cast and like there's, you could kind of go on and on about why it was special.
And I think it also received, Academy Award nominations, which is pretty unusual for a superhero movie. In 2016, Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer, but he decided to keep the condition private. So he didn't post about it or talk about it. He just continued to act and. He was very, um, productive in those four years before his death. So he, he left quite a legacy at, toward the end of his life. And I think it shocked people because when he died, you know, a lot of people didn't know.
In advance that he was sick, not widely anyway. And so it just sent sort of shockwaves, I think through the entertainment industry and through his fan base. His final film was called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. That was released posthumously. Um, in 2020, shortly after he died, and he had a posthumous Oscar for Best Actor and a Golden Globe Award for best actor actor in a motion picture drama.
so, and then he also did the voice for his character in a Disney plus anthology series. What if so? That we just watched last night, and he actually received a posthumous Emmy nomination for his voiceover performance in that. So we just watched it last night. It's a really cool little series. Um, if you're interested in, I don't know if you're interested in watching animated series, but if you know the Marvel Universe, it's kind of cool because it's just like if things happen differently, What if this happened?
It's kind of like that sliding doors thing, like, you know, it's a time old, concept, I guess, how that domino effect would happen if certain things happened differently. Anyway, so we just watched that. He received a posthumous domination for that and, you know, I just think he, he left a really.
a, a hole where people really miss him. And, you know, having, I think that it was interesting because even though I haven't seen the Black Panthers sequel, is it called Wakanda Forever? Um, did you see that?
Stephanie: I didn't get to finish it. I watched it on a plane, but we landed and I missed the
Tamara: he landed.
Stephanie: But they do a really nice tribute to him at the beginning. It's quite lengthy actually. It's really, uh, thoughtful.
Tamara: I gather and I think it was interesting cuz I did listen to some, banter about and reviews of it. And generally it's highly critically acclaimed as a follow up movie. Some people felt like it was a really important way for the M C U to kind of process this loss of this character and. The cast to process the loss of their friend and fellow actor.
Other people felt like it was too drawn out in the movie. And, you know, I don't know. I think I'll take a watch and, and make a decision for myself, but it's definitely in our to-do list to watch that. and I think that a couple other cool tidbits about him, we know that he. He went to Howard.
His, some of his teachers at Howard included Al Freeman, j uh, junior, and Felicia Rashad from the Cosby Show, who became a mentor of
Stephanie: Oh, cool.
Tamara: And she helped him raise money, with, along with Denzel Washington so that Boseman and some of his other classmates could go to the Oxford Summer program of the British American Drama Academy in England.
So, I mean, It's kind of just cool to see. He was really into Shakespeare and, you know, studied dramatists like Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, That's it. That's Chadwick Bozeman.
Stephanie: There you
Tamara: Rest in, rest in peace, my friend. I mean, not my friend, but rest in peace. Cool.
Awesome guy and handsome person with nice hair.
Stephanie: Nice bio. All right.
Tamara: What about you,
Stephanie: My curl next door. I'm gonna start by featuring Flau'jae Johnson.
Tamara: Ooh, I don't know who that
Stephanie: Yeah, well, you probably will hear about her soon. She is considered a Gen Z superstar. My references or sources today include ABC News, America's Got Talent Wiki, which is a spoiler alert, and the website. Flau'jae was born November 3rd, 2003 in Savannah, Georgia, and she's currently 19 years young and is becoming one of America's most famous teenagers.
Tamara: Ooh.
Stephanie: When she was little aged four, her mom put her in ballet, as you often do with little girls, but she didn't like it. She wanted to play basketball, but there were no teams for little girls.
All the basketball teams for young people were for boys. So she joined boys' team and she killed it. She did super well and pursued her passion for basketball all the way through school. So she was a high school, all-American basketball and she's now on full scholarship and plays guard at Louisiana State University.
And her timing to be playing college basketball is perfect because it also coincides with the change in rules around college athletes making money. So right now, she's able to profit from her name, image, and likeness, which is abbreviated to N I L, which wasn't an option before. , and I remember hearing about this for years, like college
Tamara: Sorry. N N I L. N I L.
Stephanie: is name, image, and likeness.
And college players, uh, like any sort of varsity player in the American college system wasn't able to make profit cuz college sport is a huge deal. But because they weren't pro, they weren't allowed to make money. But that rule has now changed and it coincided with her timing to get into college. So for her it worked out really great.
And what happened is because of her popularity and stardom, both on and off the court, including a 1 million person Instagram following. Puma has signed her on to a multi-year shoe contract. She's 19 and Puma signed her on to a multi-year shoe contract cause she's just so great at basketball. And Puma's interest in her is beyond just basketball, but the whole package because when she's not playing basketball, she focuses on making music.
Tamara: Oh.
Stephanie: She's also a young rap star and has a distribution deal with Jay-Z's Rock Nation. and she has music pedigree. Her father, Jason Johnson, also known as Camouflage, was a rapper and very, unfortunately, he was gunned down before she was born, but her mother was pregnant and, uh, it was a crime that was never solved.
But she said that she's, she finds connection with him through music.
Tamara: Wow. And is that why she's, is he Camouflage and she's Flau'jae?
Stephanie: Yeah, so I was gonna get to that. Her na, her name is very unique. Her father known as Camouflage, wanted to name her Flau'jae, but her mother wasn't interested and thought it was a bit silly. But after he died, uh, Flau'jae's mother felt it was the right way to pay tribute to him since it was one of their last conversations.
Tamara: Aw. Oh my gosh.
Stephanie: When she was just 14, she participated in season 13 of America's Got Talent, which was in 2018. And Simon Cowell told her, and you know, he can be so tough, he said he was really impressed. And he said, we're witnessing the start of someone's career after seeing her performance.
Tamara: Wow.
Stephanie: And she had gone on stage and had written her own rap song and it was about her father and she performed it in front of that tough audience.
but despite that, she was eliminated in the quarter finals. She also returned to America's Got Talent All Stars, which started airing January, 2023. Where she was eliminated in the preliminaries, but it doesn't really matter. She's released several viral songs and music videos, which led to her signing with Jay-Z's label, and she's got a Puma contract.
This girl's
Tamara: On
Stephanie: gonna do just fine and she's on fire. Yeah, 19 years old.
Tamara: Wow.
Stephanie: Yeah. There you go.
Tamara: That's a great one. Thank you. I did and now I'll keep my eyes out for her. And uh, she definitely sounds like one to watch.
Stephanie: Yeah. And she's so comfortable in front of the camera as many people in her generation are. So I wouldn't be surprised if we just start seeing her across media doing all sorts of crazy things.
Tamara: Yeah, she'll be hosting SNL
Stephanie: Yeah, exactly.
Tamara: Um, awesome. Alright, well I'm gonna tell you about an athlete as well. And my next mini c n d is another guy. Uh, his name is Benjamin.
Stephanie: mm-hmm.
Tamara: was born, uh, November 20th, in 1992, and he's an Australian rules footballer who
Stephanie: Aussie Rules. Wicked.
Tamara: He plays for the, is the Pron proper pronunciation?
Melbourne. Melbourne,
Stephanie: Yeah, it's, yeah,
Tamara: That's how they say it
Stephanie: I think that's how the Aussies say it.
Melbourne.
Tamara: but anyway, I
Stephanie: We would, we would, we would say Melbourne
Tamara: Yeah.
Stephanie: in Canada, we would pronounce him Melbourne, but I think they say Melbourne.
Tamara: Okay, well I'll say Melbourne because I think our listeners are used to that, but then if you're an Australian, don't come after me please. So he plays for the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League, AFL.
He, has become particularly well known for his unique, extremely long run up on set shots, but also for his. Hair, which is very, very curly. He actually, like, if you kind of Google him, I don't, I, this is not in a disparaging way, but because he's kind of like a redhead, he looks like carrot top, but like super buff
So that's not meant to be an insult. But the reason I chose him is because he's been in the news of late.
Um, I picked up some. It's like seven news.com.au. So it's, it's not like international news, but Australian News. Uh, so he's unrecognizable after shaving iconic curly locks for a special cause.
Stephanie: Oh wow.
Tamara: This is the story. So he shaved his iconic hair to raise money and awareness for kids living with cancer in honor of his little cousin, grace, which ultimately makes me think of Roy Kent in Ted Lasso in the relationship in that TV show that he has with his niece.
Stephanie: Oh yeah,
Tamara: you know. Anyway, uh, the Melbourne Star, who's famous for his ringlets and his game day headband will debut a new look this season after shaving it all off, you know, last weekend basically.
Stephanie: does he have plans to grow it back? Did you
Tamara: I think so, so, so we'll. , I'll get to that. But the before and after is pretty awesome, and he actually looks handsome with the shaved head.
it's just a different look. Like he looks totally different. Um, so he's raising money for a not-for-profit charity challenge, uh, charity called Challenge, an organization that supports children living with cancer and their families. And he has a 17 year old cousin, grace. She's battled leukemia. Twice.
When she was six, she was diagnosed, um, for the first time. and she got sick and it was some trying years for her and her family. And so
There was kind of a, a big sea of fans at Yara Park and in the middle of the game near the gate, he had the locks taken off with his cousin right by his side. So he kind of made a, a spectacle of it.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Tamara: You know, like it's not really something he did in private and just shared on social media. It's something he, he made a, a spectacle of in order to create awareness.
Um,
Stephanie: as fans could participate,
Observing.
Tamara: exactly. And he, he posted on Instagram as well saying, your support means the world to us. It will make a tangible difference in the lives of young people. He, he raised a lot of money. I don't know exactly how much, but it's, it's just interesting. It's, it's like, you know, when, when can hair be more than hair?
You know?
Stephanie: Yeah. That's a great example.
Tamara: So she has down syndrome. She overcame her first bout of cancer. She was declared cured and in remission. And then a few years later she's diagnosed with leukemia for a second time. So, you know, she was actually the first child in Australia with Down Syndrome to receive, um, a special therapy.
from a brand new technology called CAR T-Cell Therapy. So she's now back at school and thriving since beating leukemia twice. And, you know, she's had a lot of challenges in her life and he's really just trying to, shine a light on things and, and make a difference in the world. And I think that's, you know,
We've talked about this a lot, but people who develop a lot of fame, like whether they're star athletes or actors or musicians, it's like, well, what do you do with that huge platform? Once you have it, even a social media influencer, how can you use your influence and power to make some positive change in the world?
Stephanie: I agree. It's nice when it's positive fact-based change in the world.
Tamara: not just spreading lies and misinformation.
Stephanie: Yes. But it's nice in this case that he was able to use his local celebrity-dom for good.
Tamara: Yeah, I'll share his story in our Facebook, et
Stephanie: That's great.
Tamara: You're up
Stephanie: That's a great CND, Tamara. Thank you.
Tamara: Thanks.
Stephanie: All right. My next C N D is super cutie patooty pie. American actor Jeremy Allen White. He was born in February, 1991, which makes him 32 years young. His parents met in New York City and they were in showbiz, but they had to hang up their hats because they wanted to have a family and be able to support their family.
So they got real jobs, , and so he grew up in nearby Brooklyn, New York, and just flash forward. He's married to actress Addison Timlin. They got married in 2019 and they have two daughter. When he was a child, he was a dancer across several different genres such as ballet, jazz, and tap. But when he entered middle school, he decided he wanted to shift his focus to pursue acting and went to a arts high school.
And this is a testament to his talent as a young man, as a teenager, right out of high school, he got a gig with the show. Shameless. Playing Philip AK Lip Gallagher, did you ever watch Shameless?
Tamara: you know what? It's been kind of on my radar for a long time because there's so many seasons of it. Like, Better Call Saul. Like, there's so many seasons of it and it's, you know, received countless accolades and I just haven't kind of committed and buckled down to watch it. But I like William h Macy.
Stephanie: Yeah. So. The early years of Shameless are pretty, pretty hilarious. I didn't watch the whole 10 season show. I probably watched about six or seven seasons. Anyway, that's how he got on my radar. He, in my opinion, was one of the best characters on that show, and he owned every scene he was in. And I mean, he would've been 18, 19 years old.
Tamara: Wow.
Stephanie: He was on Shameless for 10 years, which is Showtime's longest running, original, scripted.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: He's also been in a handful of films and shows, but his latest work is really putting him on a rocket ship to stardom, and he's getting so many accolades. He plays the lead in a show called The Bear, which is a Hulu production, and it's getting a ton of critical acclaim.
Tamara: And where can we watch it in Canada.
Stephanie: I think it's on Disney. I'm drawing a blank. It's on one of the streaming services.
Tamara: Because it's definitely on my list. we're watching The Last of Us right now,
Stephanie: Yeah.
Tamara: but I've heard amazing things about The Bear
so yeah.
Stephanie: in the middle of it. And, uh, he's really good. He plays a young chef from the world of fine dining who returns home to Chicago to run his family's Italian beef sandwich shop called The Beef after the suicide of his older brother who left behind. A business full of debt, a rundown kitchen and staff that like to do their own thing. So that's the premise of the show and it's getting a lot of, a lot of, uh, accolades. And he himself is getting so, uh, so many accolades. He won Best actor at the 2023 Golden Globes for this role. He also won a Critic's Choice television award and was nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award. Funny enough, it's not just Jeremy Allen White who's getting acclaim.
It's also his wardrobe while playing this lead character of Carmen Carmi Berzatto
Tamara: okay.
Stephanie: I was reading The Guardian, their headline was hilarious. It says, the real star of the bear is Carmi's perfect white t-shirt. So the wardrobe stylist wanted to put him in a white T-shirt and they had a massive range of white t-shirt option options, and they were looking for the perfect shirt for him, something that was discerning cuz the character wants perfectionism and quality.
you know, he's from a fine dining establishment, but he's also from the streets of Chicago. So it's this sort of perfect balance of affordable prestige and it really reflects the character's personality, this white t-shirt. And so, I'm just gonna sidebar for a moment cuz I think it's really interesting.
This t-shirt comes from a German company called Merz B. Schwanen. I probably butchered that. They're a German brand who started making their signature white shirt after the brand's current owners discovered the company still owned old equipment. They have these old loop wheel machines that were used to make shirts in the 1920s.
There's these loop will loop wheel cotton cylinder. So I think that's super cool. They just found it, you know, in the depths of the attic or whatever, covered in dust and like dusted them off and they got the factory working again. So they're making, now this company's making shirts in a way that they would've been made a hundred years ago, and it's knitted as a continuous loop of material. So these t-shirts cost about a hundred bucks and they're considered just like the perfect shirt.
Tamara: Huh. Wow. Can you tell from watching the show or no?
Stephanie: Yeah. Like when you start watching it, look at his white t-shirt, it just like fits him perfectly. It pulls in all the right places. The quality is really nice, but of course
Tamara: he's a chef.
Stephanie: he's a chef. But that's the, that's the funny thing is that most home chefs would not wear a $100 white t-shirt while cooking
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: like one splash and you're done for moving on.
Tamara: Wow. Wow.
Stephanie: New York magazine just released a taxonomy of the biggest breakout stars under 35, and they pegged Jeremy Allen White as part of this next class of actors who will be dominating screens and taking roles of lead as leading men. It's kind of funny to think about cuz everything goes in phases. Like there was the phase with all the Chris's and the Jake Gyllenhaal sort of phase.
Right? And now it's like this next phase of. Young, gen Z and millennial actors who will be taking roles of the lead as the leading man. He's also on the cover of Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue, which is always a really huge compliment. They've pegged him as one of the new power generation and one of the bright stars that will shape the FU future of the screen. GQ did a cover with him and they said he's the breakout star of the year, so all in, I'm delighted. I think he's such a talented actor and we'll be seeing a lot more of. I think this show in particular has just put him on the radar of everybody cuz the show itself is getting such great acclaim. The bear.
Tamara: Yeah. Awesome.
Stephanie: Anyway. All right, over to over to you.
Tamara: O M G. Okay, so I told you already I had a mini bio that was prepared for today and I think it should be a regular bio. So this is my sub at the very last minute, but I, I think it's, I think she's interesting and very topical. Uh, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Selena Gomez,
Stephanie: Oh, Selena. Oh my God. She's also, she's also on the same Vanity Fair cover with Jeremy
Allen
Tamara: she is. I
Stephanie: Yeah.
Tamara: part of the reason I'm gonna talk about her, although she often, okay. Part of the reason I chose her is because she's come up a lot for these. She's very, Public with her fans about sharing what's going on in her personal life and things have come up for her a lot. And then she, she talks about it publicly.
So Mo recently she is kind of shared. There's, there's, she's come under fire partially because of that Vanity Fair cover. But just in general, I'm, because of some of her health conditions, which I'll get into, she's gained a bit of weight, no big deal. People are giving her such a hard time about her, her body shape, her size, her weight gain.
She's just like, come on, people. She accepts herself and she feels good about herself. And so I think part of that kind of accept self-acceptance for her too is like, ugh, I don't, I don't need to always straighten my hair. So, We see her a lot on the red carpet on the cover of Vanity Fair with her hair straight, pulled back, what have you.
But she recently posted, um, her natural texture, which is a very beautiful, luminous, and, Vol. Voluminous. Voluminous. It's, she's got lots of volume, but a, a kind of really nice wave, voluminous, luminous and voluminous
waves. Uh, and, uh, it's a, it's a beautiful texture and her fans are kind of going crazy.
Like there's been, I don't know. You know, a million likes already or something on, on neither TikTok or Instagram, wherever she's posting. Probably TikTok, because she was born in 1992, so she is Selena Marie Gomez, born July 22nd, 1992, so I, I think she's probably a cancer too, just like me, but N on the cusp of Leo, maybe.
She's an American singer, actress, and producer. She began her acting career in Barney and Friends . She was one of those
Disney kids. She was a true Disney kid. Like, I don't know about the timing of her and like Justin Timberlake and uh, Britney Spears,
Stephanie: I think they're
Tamara: of,
Stephanie: Sh How old's Selena?
Tamara: she was born in 92. You do the math
I need a,
Stephanie: so She's 30.
Tamara: So she's a bit younger than them. Maybe they're
Stephanie: Yeah. I think they're in their late thirties, early forties.
Tamara: Anyway, so she, you know, was in a lot of things that I haven't seen, cuz that's not I, I'm a bit older than that. But, she executive produced the Netflix television series 13 Reasons Why, which was quite in 2017. getting into some things as she sort of matured a little bit into some other, work.
She also executive producers and stars in an HBO Max cooking series called Selena and Chef. And then where she kind of came more onto Ma my radar was the Hulu Mystery Comedy Series, Only Murders in the Building in which she kind of holds her own with like Steve Martin and, um, Martin Short, which is, and, and she's kind of like an interesting foil to. Age to their acting style to their characters in a lot of ways. So she, um,
Stephanie: Yeah, I agree with that. Totally. I comment on that all the time when I watch that show. It's such an unusual trio, like you've never seen anything like that on TV ever before. Like a young woman who pals around with her new besties who
Tamara: Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie: really cool. Yeah.
I think it's great.
Tamara: It is great. And I mean, she's also come under fire. Like some people are like, oh, come on. You know, she's not that great in it, but she's good in it. And the thing is, she's not like, she hasn't trained her whole life as like a serious actress. She has her beginnings in Disney and she did a lot of pop music, you know.
But I think that's okay.
So Only Murders in the Building actually earned her critical praise and nominations for both a Golden Globe and as a producer for a primetime Emmy.
she. also has had, you know, her, her private life, been very much out in the public and, her, her health as well. She's been very public about her health. So she was diagnosed with lupus sometime between 2012 and 2014, and, In 2017, she revealed on Instagram she was withdrawing from public events because she had received a kidney transplant from actress and friend, Francia Raisa, I might be pronouncing that name wrong now.
There's a whole hullabaloo of that. They're not friends anymore. And you know, you can go down this Hollywood black hole into who said what and who did what and who's unfriended who on social media. And it is very millennial. However, her friend gave her a kidney. And for what it's worth, like, it's interesting whether you think like if someone gives you a kidney, do you like, what do you owe them for the rest of your life?
Like, do you know what I mean? Should you. Prioritize them forever and ever. Or should they be giving you a kidney just because they're doing something selfless and they don't expect anything in return, you
Stephanie: Wow. Yeah, it's an a great moral question
and kind of none of our business, like why is everyone all in their shit,
all in their beep , like mind your own business,
Tamara: I think that the, I think that they're not really close anymore and that the friend who gave the kidney has spoken out somehow about it or how she felt, you know, jilted or something.
Um, So that you know, whatever, you know, and it's like, but Selena's also got her own life and her own demons and her own this to to deal with.
During the transplant, an artery broke, an emergency surgery was conducted to build a new artery using a vein from her leg. She's been open with her struggles. about her struggles with anxiety, with depression. She revealed in 2020 she has bipolar disorder, so she has over a hundred million Instagram followers and sh a as a result, like she shares a lot, but she's also taken some breaks from social media because I think for her, as someone with some mental health challenges, you know, she struggles with the negativity.
You know, she. Per se have like a thick skin. And of course lots of aspects of her life have been talked about her on, again, off again, relationship with Justin Bieber. everybody basically that she's dated, people talk about, and. She's super buddies with Taylor Swift, so that becomes a story publicly as well.
you know, that's kind of a, a nice girlfriend story that it's like, you know, it's, they seem to publicly really support each other. Um, but I don't think she has tons and tons of friends in the industry outside of Taylor Swift.
Stephanie: Yeah, the um, the Beebs thing is interesting. I remember hearing a headline about that a few months. I guess her fan base loves Selena so much that they were totally trolling Beeb's wife. Um, yeah.
And uh, to the point where Selena had to go, like publicly say, guys, stop it. She's a nice woman. I'm happy for them.
Move on. I moved on. You need to move on.
Tamara: Yeah, yeah. That makes, that makes tons of sense. So, there's tons you can read up about her. She was born in Texas. Um, I think she had, she was born to a young mother. Uh, her mom was only 16. And I think that, um, Her mother was very strong, but they, they had us, they struggled when she was a child.
So, you know, she's had an interesting life. She's certainly super famous and she's a, definitely a multihyphenate, you know, she can act, she can produce, she can direct, she does music, she does tv. Um, she does cooking apparently , which I haven't watched. And you know, I think she's a, a cool girl
and, you know, it just came on my radar. And then the last week, this beautiful picture of her, her natural texture of hair. And, you know, I hope she'll wear it like that more. I mean, uh, we're not in the business on this podcast of telling people they can't straighten their hair or they should do this or should do that, but you know, it, it looks pretty gorgeous.
in its natural state.
Stephanie: Nice.
Tamara: So that's Selena Gomez in a nutshell, as a mini bio I'll, I'll post a link to the, uh, the picture of her on Instagram or you can just go to her
Stephanie: Oh, I see it. Yeah.
Tamara: Yeah, She's a
gorgeous girl. Yeah, she has a lot of like hardcore fans and I'm sure it doesn't hurt that she's fans with Taylor Swift, cuz all the Swifties will probably stand by her as well.
Stephanie: Well, and Taylor Swift has created like this little girl gang of celebrities across acting, singing models, all
Tamara: right. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
Stephanie: Yep. All
right. Yeah. Great. Love Selena. And um, Only Murders in the Building is such a clever show.
Tamara: Yeah. It's a fun show. We watched season one. I have to catch up. There's so many shows and so Little Time.
Stephanie: So many shows, so little time. All right. The last but not least, curl Next Door Mini Bioo is about another, what did you call it? Hyphen,
what did you He's a Multihyphenate, Josh Ostrovsky,
Tamara: Hmm.
Stephanie: known as the Fat Jewish.
Tamara: Oh,
Stephanie: My sources today include the New York Times, Forbes, Wikipedia, and Vox. I encourage you to check out his Instagram account, which is at Fat Jew.
brash
and funny and hon
Tamara: him.
Stephanie: honestly got me through the doldrums of the pandemic when we were ordered to stay at home and do nothing. And I'm sure everyone had a bit of a depression spiral. And I remember just like spending way too much time on Instagram cuz you were just looking for anything to latch onto
to pass the time and the fat Jew.
Had me busting a gut frequently for those two years. Uh, his Instagram account, in fairness, isn't his original content, but it's definitely original curation led by his great sense of humor. It's mostly a collection of other people's memes and tweets and just social media hilarity with some, some con some of his own content. he does a lot of self mockery about his appearance. He's kind of sloppy and his, his appearance, his personal brand is a little outlandish, so he makes fun of himself and he has gotten a bit of heat. over the years about being successful on the backs of other people, cuz most of the content he does is not his own content and he's, he has been called out for plagiarism as for a while.
On many occasions, he would repost social media jokes that were the property of other comedians. So he would repost their jokes but wasn't crediting the originators of the material. So there'd be a bit of, um, social media feuding cuz the originator would say like, Hey , this is mine. And there's then a bit of a, an interesting gray area where these jokes would not have gotten such public, um, wouldn't have been out in the public had he not found them.
And reposted.
Tamara: right.
Stephanie: So he's the one who helped these jokes get airtime, but he wasn't giving the originators their due, which he's since gone back and credited original, the originators of the material.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: He really got attention in his early days when he filmed a comedy bit in New York City at the time. like spinning is always huge and Soul Cycle is such a big deal.
And he was in New York City and he got a bunch of folks, including homeless people, to jump on the bike, share city bikes and use them as stationary bikes. So you know how here there's like Bixie and you go to a Bixie station and there's like 20 bikes lined up, but they're locked in. So he had a bunch of people just jump on.
And used them as stationary bikes. And he basically ran a spin class, led it like a workout class on the spin on these bikes and used them as spin bikes. And he posted it to his Instagram and it went viral. And that was sort of like his moment. That's what got him a lot of, uh, followers. And
now,
Tamara: year was that? Do you,
Stephanie: uh, 2011.
So that's what sort of got him started and he now has almost 10 million follow. He's gone by many names. The Fat Jew. The Fat Jewish Jewther Vandross, Fabrizio Goldstein, Jewsan Sarandon, That one made me Joshua Onassis, Fatrick Jewing, the Fat Jew of Liberty, and there's many, many more.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And so yeah, the multi hyphen, he wears a lot of hats.
So firstly, he's an influencer, as I've just established, and he gets a lot of money from big companies to do product placement and has worked on jobs for Burger King and Virgin Mobile, and Budweiser, and Weight Watchers and many, many more.
Tamara: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: He's also a journalist and he's got a journalist background actually, and he's done entertainment reporting for E, and he's made regular appearances on Bloomberg News.
He's also tried his hand at acting. He played himself on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which I think is hilarious. And he's also played supporting roles in a bunch of films. He also models, he claims he's the first, the world's first male plus size model, and he's been in a handful of magazines.
Tamara: Oh,
that's funny.
Stephanie: designer. He debuted
a collection at New York Fashion Week in 2015. He's also a writer. Same year, he published a book of personal essays and images called Money Pizza Respect He's also a musician. He was in a hip hop group in college and then later created a Major Lazer tribute band,
He's also an entrepreneur. He, along with three partners, launched an alcoholic beverage company called Swish Beverages. And this wine company launched with White Girl Rose, which was a huge success. And then they followed it up with a line of canned sparkling wines called Babe, which also was really splashy.
And in 2019 it was bought by Budweiser's Parent Company In Bev, which was their biggest investment into wine at that point. So that's a pretty big deal.
Tamara: Yeah.
Stephanie: And then lastly, he's also a minister. He's an ordained minister and he's officiated a bunch of wedding ceremonies. And when I was doing some research, apparently he's, he was on, in Miami Beach and he did an impromptu, uh, wedding for someone
Could you imagine? You're just like hanging out in the beach
and just decide to get married. So there you go. If you want some controversial humor, check him out at Fat J. Pretty funny guy.
Tamara: Oh, and also I'm just, I'm not like jumping way into the Google, but he, he was married to, uh, Katie Sturino.
Like his, what his ex-wife, I guess, is a sort of plus size body, positive social media influencer as.
Stephanie: Yep. Yep.
Tamara: I don't know the details of their, their divorce, but what, and his hair. You gotta tell us a little bit about his hair for those
Stephanie: Oh yeah, for sure. So he's got a lot of it, but it's kind of tied up into, I wouldn't, I don't know what to call it. It's like a ponytail at the top of his head and it's kind of like a rat tail, but it would, it's not coming out of the nappe of the neck. It's coming out of the middle of his head.
he has some curl.
Tamara: yeah. He, he sort of, uh, likes to wear it sticking straight up like, a troll doll
Stephanie: Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.
Tamara: like it's frizzy enough to kind of stick, defy gravity. And then sometimes he seems to put like multiple elastics around this ponytail, very much on the top of his head so that it sticks up like a straight thing,
Stephanie: Yep.
Tamara: like little.
Stephanie: Yeah, and so he's also like his, he also has a photo where it's a bit more bouffant. It's not as tight in a multi elastic like ponytail. He's got one where it's just a bit wider, but it's always on the top of his head. Like the rest of his head is kind of shaved down to help at emphasis to like the main part of hair, which is either kind of in like this. I don't even know what to call it. It's not a bun. It's like a cone, like the hair shape looks like a cone or it looks like a stick.
Tamara: He's got very interesting, like a very interesting signature style. I think like he's just chosen to style his hair in a. Really unusual way that people will remember him for. It's like, oh, that guy. Yeah, I recognize that guy. Cuz even if you don't remember his Instagram handle or his name, you're like, I've seen him before in this, you know, you're pointing out like all the different.
Roles he plays and things he does. He's got his hand in a lot of pots, which I had no idea. I only know of him from Instagram. So it's, I'm really glad that you picked this and brought it up because his Instagram is super funny, but it's interesting to know a little bit more about the guy.
Awesome. , love that.
Well, I love those stories today. I love your selections, and I just, it's so much fun all the time hearing who you bring to the table. And there's so much joy for me in that anytime you're like, and my c n d is, I'm like, yes. Tell me who, it gonna be?
Stephanie: I feel the same way about you and that's why we keep it a secret cuz it's so fun to tell you about these great little stories and to hear your stories. I've learned so much.
Tamara: Yay.
thanks for listening everybody. We hope you have an amazing day. And again, if you. Want to help support us and keep us going and keep interviewing amazing people and bringing you stories You can make a donation at patreon.com/curlnextdoorpodcast. You can pay as little as $5 a month to support us and keep us going If you love this.
Stephanie: We would really appreciate it.
Tamara: Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to Curl Next Door Podcast, wherever you pod, and follow us on social in between episodes. We're @curlnextdoorpodcast on Facebook and Instagram and @curlnextdoorpod on Twitter.
Stephanie: if you prefer listening to your podcast on YouTube, feel free to check us out there @curlnextdoorpodcast