CHRIS OLSEN: “It’s Rehab or You Lose Us” - My Family Made Me Choose

0:00Jamie Laing: My childhood felt idyllic. It felt like everything was good and then it was all just taken away very quickly. I had an intervention and my family just sent me down to rehab. If I didn't go that day that I would be cut off from the entire family.

0:12Chris Olsen: Wow.

0:12Jamie Laing: Got to my sister and she started sobbing and she was just like, please don't make dad read his letter. I like always get emotional when I talk about this specific conversation. Hi, I'm Chris Olsen and I'm in great company. Introducing Chris Olsen. Okay. I tap out. This is it. How many followers do you have total? It becomes unfathomable in a way. One of the strongest opinions here is anger about me after the Golden Globes. I opened the comment section and the top five comments were about being angry at me, that I was there. It's almost like a jealousy thing in a way. If I'm really honest with myself, it is a marker of success.

0:51Jamie Laing: When your mom says I'm an alcoholic, do you even know what that is? Every morning it became tears in the car in the morning.

0:56Chris Olsen: That's a lot to handle.

0:58Jamie Laing: It just became a much harder thing to process for me again as a teenager who was already so unhappy with his life. My dad and I had a really strained relationship at that point too, especially once I started drinking. I had no dreams anymore. I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future. I was just so upset about every aspect of my life and it didn't feel like I had a place to be safe.

1:23Chris Olsen: When did you realize it was getting too much, that drinking?

1:33Chris Olsen: Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Lang, and this is Great Company.

1:41Chris Olsen: Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode of Great Company. Now, today's episode is a big one because we have Chris Olsen. Now, he is one of the biggest TikTok stars in the entire world. His followers are out of control, and he rose to fame when he did this viral series of Flying for Coffee where he delivered coffee to celebrities like Austin Butler, Jennifer Lopez. It was huge. Okay. Now, he is spending some time in the UK part-time because he's in a new relationship. And I reached out to his boyfriend in a DM to get to Chris. His boyfriend replied. That's how we got him on. Now, we chat about everything.

2:13Chris Olsen: We chat about fame. We chat about social media. We chat about his mom's struggles with alcohol, his own sobriety, and his experience of rehab. We go deep. We go light. We go all over the place. I promise you're going to love this one. It's going to be amazing. Now, as always, before we start, if I could ask you one thing, and that is if you can click subscribe, it means we can keep getting these amazing guests. It means we can keep making the show better and better for you each week, which we always want to do. And we can keep making this whole thing completely free. Okay, here we go. This is Great Company with Chris Olson.

2:48Jamie Laing: Hi, I'm Chris Olson, and I'm in Great Company.

2:55Jamie Laing: How are you finding London? I love it. I love it, which a lot of the time when I say that, English people will come up to me. Not British people, English, because I know when I say British people, people are like, it's English. It's English. What? Sorry. That's the last time I'll do that. So I love it quite a lot. But a lot of people, when I say that to them here, they're like, why? And I'm like, one, it's still new to me. But also, I have someone I love here. and it's very similar to New York. It feels like the OG New York. And when I say that, everyone's like, no, that's actually York. I'm like, okay, go to York and tell me that it feels like New York then.

3:34Chris Olsen: York does not feel like New York. There is no way.

3:38Jamie Laing: They kind of took over, all right? But yeah, I feel like it makes a lot of sense to me as like the layout of the city feels comfortable to me. It feels very homey. And I think I always kind of wanted to spend a lot of time here, even as a kid, because Americans have a big fascination with the UK in general. Why is that? I think mainly because of the accent, like not even going to lie. I feel like Americans hear everyone in the room talk. You guys all speak so beautifully and we are enamored by it. It's like, I don't know, it's a beautiful way of speaking. And we have the same thing in maybe a little bit of a worse way.

4:19Jamie Laing: We kind of took it and made it worse as Americans sometimes do. Can you do, can you do, can you do a Welsh accent? Oh no. Like if we get into the specifics, I know certain accents are probably a little bit out there and different, but I can barely do a standard RP British accent. Even though in college I went to school for musical theater, we had to take an accent class for an entire year. So we had to like learn different accents. No, you didn't. We sure did. We sure did. What did you have to learn? Of course, British. That's kind of like the first one you have to do. And then we had to pick one that we did a presentation on.

4:58Jamie Laing: And I stupidly picked Scottish, which is incredibly hard. Very hard. Scotland. That's all I can say. And every single time that I needed to, we needed to do an entire presentation in that accent. And every single time I was kind of losing it, I would just like whisper Scotland under my...

5:17Chris Olsen: Yeah, to get yourself back into it.

5:19Jamie Laing: Yeah, to try to do that or think about Shrek.

5:24Chris Olsen: Chris, you say you're in love.

5:27Jamie Laing: Yes, with you. Is your hair naturally that blonde? Yeah, it is. Okay, I'm sure that's probably a point of conversation that happens often on here or just in your life in general. You seem to avoid the question about being in love. Oh, I said, I said with you. Yeah, I am. I am. Period. I came here this summer after I did a social media break. And while I was here over the summer, I was like, I kind of feel like I'm ready to get back into dating. And my therapist was like, okay, then start dating. I was like, well, it's not that simple. She was like, I think it is. And then she challenged me to set up a few dates.

6:05Jamie Laing: So I set up like five dates in one week back to back to back. Okay, great. Yes. Okay.

6:11Chris Olsen: On a dating app?

6:12Jamie Laing: Yes. Okay, nice.

6:14Chris Olsen: Which one did we go for?

6:16Jamie Laing: Well, we were going across multiple. Great. Just to spread the options. I get it. Yeah, I get it. So it was across multiple, and I set up all of these dates, and some of them were good. Some of them I was like, I'm ready to turn this off. All of them, so many people love to go on a walking date here, especially in the summer. I remember I took a berries class one morning, and some guy took me on like a two-hour walk. I thought my legs were going to fall off. He was like, are you okay? I was like, yeah, I think so. I can't see you again, though. Is that what they like? They like walking dates? They like walking dates.

6:48Jamie Laing: My friend, Rachel Zegler, who was here over the summer playing Evita, she also met her boyfriend here this summer and said their first date was a walking date. Yeah.

6:57Chris Olsen: Kind of romantic-ish? Kind of.

6:59Jamie Laing: If it works, it didn't work with this guy. I remember I posted about it on my close friends. It was like, why does everyone want to walk here?

7:06Chris Olsen: it's also one of these things which like if you go for like a coffee date or like a food date there's an out a walking date there isn't really an out you can try to walk faster but sometimes they'll catch up to you i guess i guess i'm going i was desperate to sit down on this walking date

7:23Jamie Laing: and we were walking past so many benches and at some point i was like can we sit he was like why i was like i gotta go anyway the man i'm with now harrison he was the last date of the week and I was kind of, again, I was just kind of going on these dates to get back into the practice of it. So it felt low stakes for me, but I also thought he was very attractive on the app. And I -

7:48Chris Olsen: What was his little thing? What did it say?

7:51Jamie Laing: Well, he made the first move on there and one of the things on his profile said something about being an opera singer. He can sing opera.

8:00Chris Olsen: Okay.

8:01Jamie Laing: And I think my first message was something like, how many dates in until you sing for me? And I think he said three or something. And I was like, then we better get started. And then he suggested a date like two weeks from then. And I was like, no, I'm going to be gone, which was maybe even a lie. But I was like, no, we must do it now because I'm doing all these dates in this week. He was like, why don't we take this workout class that's right around the corner from the flat you're staying at and right near my office. So after work, we'll take this workout class and then we can go out to get food.

8:32Jamie Laing: And I was like, sure. I was like, what's the workout class? He said high rocks. I was like, I don't know what that is, but great. I show up and I almost die. Have you ever taken a high rocks class? Do you know what it is?

8:42Chris Olsen: I dipped in once. It's hard. It is. It's like out of all the workouts, it's like the most intense. Harrison, what are you? That is the most intense. It's like muscle ups.

8:53Jamie Laing: Yeah. It's kind of like he was putting me through a test. He was like, if you can do this, then I guess we'll keep going. I was like, what is going on? Because it's also a competition workout class. Yeah. And I'm on a first date. So I'm trying to look like this is easy for me. But apparently by the end of it, my face had really dropped because he thought I was so over it. But then we went out to get pizza and then we sat there and talked for like five hours until the restaurant closed. And they were like, you got to go. So we went on that date and then we went on like one date a week after that.

9:24Jamie Laing: And it was kind of a slow burn because British people aren't that into words of affirmation. And so if you don't tell me directly that you like me, I just like, I think he likes it, but I don't know. So I was kind of under the operation that I was like, I am this silly little TikToker and this guy has a real job. So he must be having fun talking to me because I'm like the most unhinged person he's ever met. And I'm having a good time pretending that maybe this could go somewhere. Meanwhile, apparently he was feeling the same way the whole time And we were both just kind of having We were both having thoughts that maybe the other person wasn't as into it as But that's what happens on dates there, right?

10:03Jamie Laing: Right What is your love language? Words of affirmation Like I love to receive words of affirmation I also love to give words of affirmation But I'm really good at giving gifts

10:14Chris Olsen: How do you know when you're in love? What does it feel like?

10:17Jamie Laing: I think it changes throughout different eras of my life. I feel like when I was really young, when I was a teenager, it was probably this intense infatuation that was just like, again, I have a very addictive personality and that follows through in every aspect of my life. I think I can get addicted to absolutely anything that makes me a little bit happy. So I think when I was a kid or a teenager, it showed up in the way of like being obsessed with someone. And now I think I look back on that time and realize that was infatuation. That was obsession. That was really liking the way the person made me feel because of who they were or how they looked.

10:54Chris Olsen: Wow.

10:54Jamie Laing: Which is still important. you can like how someone makes you feel, but you also want to like them regardless of how they're affecting you.

11:04Chris Olsen: That is really interesting. I've never thought of it like that. Because, yeah, I think when I remember when I had my first ever relationship when I was around 15 years old, right? It was like an obsession. And I had this sort of, I would say an addictive personality, right? I can become obsessed with things. And it's so true because that relation, whatever was going on in that relationship it made me feel I was obsessed with the feeling more than maybe the actual person. So when that person went away, it was like, what that feeling that I had, and so many people must understand that. So you explaining that, that sometimes we get addicted to the feeling almost.

11:40Jamie Laing: Yeah, 100%. And that is why it's so hard to let it go. Or there's this fear that if it ends, everything will be horrible. And I think one of the reasons I'm, I feel very secure in where my life is now is because even before we met, I had been happy alone for a while at that point. I think there was a lot of chaos in my life and maybe I was unhappy with myself at times, but that never translated into needing someone else to fill that gap because I think I had experienced enough that trying to fill that gap with someone else never works. Being unhappy with someone else is way worse than being unhappy alone, I think.

12:20Chris Olsen: 100%.

12:21Jamie Laing: And so I felt very secure with myself, I felt very stable. And so when I met Harrison, he became part of the stability rather than filled in a gap that needed to be filled. It was like I was ready for someone to join along the journey rather than needing someone to be there to support me through it. And now that he's here, he does support me through it and we support each other. But I think Like when it becomes less of a need and more of just a want and an enhancement to your life, there's less pressure on it because then you're not thinking from the scarcity mindset. You're not thinking, if this person leaves me, I won't be able to function.

13:01Jamie Laing: You need to be at a point where if the person leaves you, of course, it's going to be sad. Breakups suck. But you will be okay with the other aspects of your life. Things won't completely fall apart.

13:12Chris Olsen: How do you get to a place where you can be alone and happy?

13:16Jamie Laing: I feel like it probably looks different for everyone. But my experience was when I spent enough time with someone else unhappy that I realized this is not what I want to go through. because my sanity and my stability comes from being able to decompress by myself, go to therapy, and also have a sense of self that is not directly tied to someone else, which I think was initially really hard at the start of my adult life because I started doing content with someone else. When I became someone who was working on social media, became a content creator, it was during the pandemic and I was dating someone and we were making couple content.

14:03Jamie Laing: And that wasn't necessarily by design. I didn't think, okay, let me start making couple content and let's do this together. But there was nothing happening in the pandemic. I was going to school for musical theater. I wanted to be creative and we started creating together. And then before we knew it very quickly, it became a job and our job became being in the relationship. and I think that really set up my mindset very differently early on and there was so much fear about what would happen if that relationship ended because it was tied to my job it was tied

14:35Chris Olsen: to my livelihood at that point to worth in every aspect yes yeah which I think ended up

14:42Jamie Laing: holding it together for both of us a little longer than it should have and not that I mean saying should have I feel like can be tricky because I've learned everything I have because of the way things went but I think by the end of that relationship we had we had to get to a point where we knew we would be okay with whatever was going forward because what's working or what's happening is not working and I remember realizing thinking that my job might not last after this people might not want to see what I have to say by myself because also so much of our content was me filming him. And I had to weigh whether that mattered to me so much.

15:25Jamie Laing: Like was the financial situation, was the validation, was everything that I had built online, did that matter more to me than my happiness at that point? And feeling good about myself as a person separated from all of that. And I think that was the first time I had to learn the lesson that I have to be okay with me before anything else falls into place because it won't fall into place that way. And I think I was okay with me when it began. And then there was a lot of pressure put on us that we obviously kind of played into because we were continuing the job as a couple. But I think that is where it ended up taking a turn.

16:03Jamie Laing: And when it ended, I had to be okay with losing it all and starting something new.

16:09Chris Olsen: Wow, it's a risk, isn't it? It is. When you take that leap, which you did, and you suddenly go, right, okay, this is it. I'm out of it. I'm going to start again. Did you feel relief? And this was with your ex-boyfriend Ian, right? Yes.

16:22Jamie Laing: It took a long time to get to that point of feeling. I remember my therapist months before we ended up breaking up said that she did not think this was healthy for me to be in. And she is a very good therapist and isn't going to tell me what to do. But she was mirroring back everything I just said and was like, do with that information what you will. And at that point in time, I was not completely ready. But when it got to the point where I was ready, I had to be ready to let everything go. But I think the reason maybe I was able to do that, and it wasn't easy, but the reason maybe it was a few percentages easier to do that was because of the things I had been through in the past with my mom going to rehab and my parents separating and all of this stuff happening while I went to boarding school for the first time and feeling like everything changed in my life at once and just realizing I had to be okay with it and I had to like somehow stabilize myself, which I didn't because I was 15.

17:22Jamie Laing: And then when I'm 19, going to rehab myself and having to get sober and that was not my choice. I had an intervention and my family just sent me down to rehab because the whole intervention setup was that if I didn't go that day, that I would be cut off from the entire family.

17:39Chris Olsen: so you had been so you had exposed yourself to situations where you were basically left with nothing before and so you 100 so you knew that from a sort of mental state you knew that this has happened before in different circumstances so i will survive this bit if we go if i go through

17:55Jamie Laing: it now yeah i was i remember being in rehab and being like this is probably the lowest i want to go right now because the rehab was also very shame-based. It was not very surrounded by love. It was very much under the ideation that you had ruined everything in your life and it was your job to make it better. And I was there for six months inpatient and then had to do continuing care for three more months. So it was basically an entire year. And I think going through that made me, one, stay sober out of fear initially, but two, realize that if I got through that, then I think I can get through a breakup.

18:37I think I can get through possibly having to start fresh

18:41Jamie Laing: once again from a place where I'm not starting fresh, institutionalized, basically. I'm able to do it with a bit more freedom. And I think that was also part of the point as to why they gave us such a hard time in rehab because so much of the thought process was also that if you can live through all of this, everything that we do to you here, you'll be able to handle everything. And if you can live through all of it and stay sober, then you can do it all sober too.

19:16Jamie Laing: Where did you grow up? I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, the nation's capital. Heard of it? Oh, yeah. It's a little rough there these days. It is a little rough. Yeah, yeah.

19:27Chris Olsen: But happy?

19:29Jamie Laing: I look back on my childhood with so much love. I think it was a perfect childhood. It was a privileged childhood with both my parents together. They were both lawyers. They met in law school. I had a lovely childhood. I was on a swim team growing up. We went to church every Sunday. We went to dinner as a family every Sunday after church. It felt almost idyllic looking back on it. Obviously, when I was in it, I was like, why can't you guys move me to LA and let me be a child star? I always wanted to just do something. So you knew, so you just felt like,

20:04Chris Olsen: was it the energy of being on stage, the validation? What is it?

20:09Jamie Laing: Honestly, I think it was definitely the energy of being on stage. I love theater more than anything else. I could see a show every night. And I feel like when I first did a show, that became a part of it. But also I remember like I watched high school musical as a kid and was like, I want to do that. That's that's who I want to be. I don't think it was initially the fame aspect of it all. I think I became curious about that, honestly, during the rise of like the Kardashians, because I was like, well, it does seem like they do a lot of cool things like I could step into some of that. But I think it really was just wanting to be creative.

20:46Jamie Laing: And I think that's why when COVID happened and when I was in school for theater, but then it shut down. I felt like I needed to be creative in another way. And that's why I started social media.

20:56Chris Olsen: But happy family.

20:58Jamie Laing: Happy family.

20:59Chris Olsen: Close with your mom and dad?

21:01Jamie Laing: Yeah. I want to say closer to my mom when I was growing up. and my dad at the same time though we were very close and he did an incredible job as a dad adjust kind of figuring out how to relate to me when we didn't have a lot to relate to initially okay because he again is a lawyer he you know he we we are very different and i think we found our similarities now but I mean he had a kid who was like did not want to do anything academic just wanted to perform I was like singing high school musical around the house making everyone watch Glee every night that it came out and he got to the point where even though he was taking me to soccer practice sorry football even though he was taking me to practice he would play Glee songs in the car and like he really got into Taylor Swift even more than I did initially he he really like found ways to that that he also enjoyed to kind of relate to me as a kid but my mom and I were definitely very close because we were very similar we were very outgoing my sister is like much more internal than me what's the word for that introverted yes introverted and I'm much more extroverted and my dad is very similar so they kind of had their close relationship and then me and my mom.

22:25Jamie Laing: And then around my teen years, my mom's dad passed away when I was like 11 or 12. And then around my teen years, everything changed out of nowhere. It felt like to me, I was in the car one day with my mom and it had become a bit of a theme that the morning car rides to school were not enjoyable anymore because it was very, it felt very volatile in the morning. And then by the time she was driving me home at night, it felt like everything was calm and we were having a good time.

23:01Chris Olsen: Wow.

23:02Jamie Laing: And you were noticing this. I wasn't exactly noticing it until after the fact when one morning in the car, she just started crying to me and saying that she was an alcoholic. And I had no idea that that was in the cards. I did not think like, oh yeah, no, it's obvious. She was a very high functioning person throughout our entire childhood. And it never really seemed to fully rupture. But I think when her dad passed away, it became a little bit more heightened. And I remember hearing that in the morning and being like, okay. I mean, again, I'm 13, 14 and I'm feeling already like a hormonal angry teenager.

23:43Jamie Laing: and so my thought in the moment selfishly was probably like why is my mom crying to me on the way to school of course it would be which of course now i look back on it and i have so much empathy for both of us in that scenario because i'm like that kid probably needed to have that conversation in a different way but also my mom was clearly going through so much that that

24:02Chris Olsen: conversation needed to happen then but how do you process do you even know what when she when your mom says i'm an alcoholic do you even know what that is do you because do you understand that

24:11Jamie Laing: I think logically, but not emotionally. I logically know, okay, that means you drink too much. But emotionally, I don't know what that's connected to. Logically, I also think, well, then, okay, you'll go to these AA meetings and you'll stop, right?

24:27Chris Olsen: Yeah, because that's the logical thing.

24:28Jamie Laing: You're just going to stop. Right. Which, of course, now after being through my own journey, I'm like, that's not how it works. I mean, it would be incredible. And some people probably do just go to AA, not probably do go to AA and stop. But with a certain type of genetic makeup, it becomes way harder to do that. And a background and trauma and all of those things. And about a week later, I think the conversation, like every morning it became tears in the car in the morning.

24:53Chris Olsen: Wow, that's a lot for a kid to take on.

24:55Jamie Laing: It was definitely a lot. And again, I think that's your rock.

24:59Chris Olsen: That's your, that's your mom. Yeah.

25:01Jamie Laing: Yeah. But also she is going through so much at the time too, that it becomes in the moment I'm angry about it because I'm like, I'm 13 and I don't know what you, I don't know what you want me to say. But then after the fact, I think now I look back on it. And of course I think the conversation could have happened differently. And now I would have the conversation very differently, but I can't imagine how much pain she was going through at the time. And a week later, the conversation became that she needs to go to rehab. And that became a much more confusing conversation because I was like, okay, so that means you have to go away.

25:42Jamie Laing: And I think also, again, my initial thought about that might have been a little bit of relief because I I was becoming very emotionally distressed and exhausted by the conversations we were consistently having. And I was also realizing that the reason things were good on the drive home were because she had self-medicated in a way. I don't she had never gotten to the point around me where it was noticeable that she was even slightly intoxicated, which I think was part of the confusion for me. but I'm I you know she had gotten to a point where clearly it was very manageable for her on an outside perspective but not internally and not between her and my dad and so it just became a much harder thing to process for me again as a teenager who was already so unhappy with his life because I'm like going to an all-boys school at that time I hadn't gone to boarding school yet my grades were tanking because of everything that was happening at home and because I also hated academics i was just like this isn't for me let me be on stage and i had recently come out at the

26:53Chris Olsen: same time so it was so much was going on so much going on yeah do you know what like for me what i do is i i imagine you and your mom in that car together and i feel so sorry for both of you 100 you know what i mean i have so much empathy because i feel so sorry for your mom because internally what she's dealing with and for her to to obviously she's she's crying out for help And she turns to her son because she doesn't really probably know who else to turn to. And from your side, I feel so sorry for you because you're 13 years old, whatever you are, and how are you meant to understand that? And then you have to deal emotionally with your mom having a sort of breakdown around this whole thing in front of you.

27:28Chris Olsen: That's a lot to handle.

27:30Jamie Laing: Yeah, it definitely was a lot. I was put into therapy around that time, which I think was helpful. By your parents? By my parents. I remember I think one of my first things that I said in therapy was like, I think they're putting me in here because they think fixing my problems will fix theirs. And I was like, I don't know where that came from. But I also remember crying the second I sat down there because I was just like, I don't like I don't even know why I'm here. like I'm witnessing my parents issues and that is taking a toll on me but when at that age therapy to me looked like like someone goes there when they're having an issue which I clearly was and I don't think therapy is necessarily simply just to go you don't just go to therapy when you have an issue but I remember it was a very hard time in general because then I was going to school at this all boys school and I had just came out and I didn't have very many friends.

28:26Jamie Laing: I had lost a bunch of the friends that I had before I came out. And I remember it did get to a point, I think around maybe before she went to rehab or after where I started getting driven to school by our family friends because they went to the sister school across the street from ours. And I remember I sat down there one day and I don't even know how the conversation began. It was September. So the school year had just begun. And I think my best friend at the time who was driving me there was like, are you okay? And I immediately started crying because I was just like, I can't, I don't want to go, I don't want to go to school.

29:08Jamie Laing: I don't want to go to school. I don't want to go home. I don't want to be anywhere. I was just so upset about every aspect of my life and it didn't feel like I had a place to be safe. Did you feel anxious, sad? I don't think I knew exactly what anxiety was at that point, but I knew I was, I think I was depressed, like very classically and clinically depressed because I didn't see a future in a way. I couldn't see much farther ahead than what I needed to get through that day. Chris, that's a lot. Yeah, I mean, it definitely is. I've spent a lot of time looking back on it because my therapist and our philosophy really is, as we've talked about, everything goes back to childhood.

29:54Jamie Laing: A lot of the way that I am now goes back to childhood too. But I think it just became a very lonely place to be, which I think was maybe the first time I learned to be okay with myself alone, but not in a way that I was happy with myself alone. because by the time my mom went to rehab, my dad was dropping me off at a family friend's house, which was five minutes away in the morning. And then I came home on the bus every night and my dad was gone until like eight or nine at night at work or doing whatever he needed to do after work too. My sister was doing her own thing and my sister and I were not close during this time, which frequently breaks my heart because there was...

30:38Jamie Laing: I like always get emotional when I talk about this specific conversation, but she came up to me.

30:48Jamie Laing: She came up to me one night that we were alone at our house and she said, if she knew that I was having a really hard, hard time with everything. and she said I know what you're going through and I know you might not think that I'm feeling the exact same things you are but there was a point in time during everything that was happening with our parents where I also maybe felt the need to like where I also felt depressed in a way and I remember at the time I think I just said like, okay to her because I didn't know how to have that conversation. And I ended up bringing, bringing that up when I was at rehab four or five years later where I was just like, I remember you coming up to me and having that conversation.

31:52Jamie Laing: And I'm so sorry. I didn't give you more in that moment. And she started crying at that time because she thought I didn't even remember that whole conversation. And it just felt very cathartic of like years where we could have been close and we weren't. And we could have like supported each other through it. But we just didn't at the time because we didn't know how to have that conversation in a way. And I think that is a very like, that is the picture of exactly what we were going through. I would come home. She would maybe be home and she would be upstairs and I would be downstairs and we wouldn't be talking about anything.

32:34Jamie Laing: And I would just be alone. And I wasn't doing any of my schoolwork. I was just like on the computer doing whatever. I think that's where I actually found solace and safety and social media for the first time because I was just like, there are people I can talk to on here. there are, but I just think like every single member of my family was going through so much pain at that time. And none of us talked about it. My dad was going through it and my dad and I got, had a really strained relationship at that point too, especially once I started drinking. And then my sister and I just weren't close.

33:08Jamie Laing: And it really, it's heartbreaking to me a lot of the time that no one had that.

33:15Chris Olsen: You never, no one was having a conversation.

33:16Jamie Laing: No, we just didn't have a I was so alone as a kid. And it happened out of nowhere where we were doing this. I said to you, my childhood felt idyllic. It felt like everything was good. And then it was all just taken away very quickly.

33:35Do you remember your first drink that you had?

33:39Jamie Laing: Yeah. And I remember...

33:40Chris Olsen: The feeling.

33:41Jamie Laing: Yeah. I loved it immediately. I remember just feeling really good and feeling like loose for the first time. I didn't realize how much I was like holding on to. And I remember just I had a really fun night the first time. It was some parents stolen alcohol because me and my friend were 15. I remember we got caught that night and we were forced to like clean up the basement and like for hours throughout the day. I remember it was just like it was a very classic first drinking experience where you're stealing your someone's parents alcohol. You get caught. And I remember just feeling like. It was I didn't have any anxiety about my perception as well, because, you know, there's the whole thing about drunk texts or like posting while you're drunk, which thank God I didn't have a platform during any of the time that I was drinking.

34:33Jamie Laing: It would have been such a mess. I already I probably overshare and post too much so like drinking it just would have really released the floodgates but I think it it removes that self-awareness and also that anxiety about your perception which everyone has and I think I don't I wouldn't say I don't have that anymore I of course have it but I think I've had to make peace with having it and also realizing that people are going to think whatever they want to think about me. And sometimes it's not my business, but in the moment it was peace for the first time in that specific time in my life. When did you realize

35:12Chris Olsen: it was getting too much that drinking?

35:14Jamie Laing: I think I knew pretty quickly that that was, this was going to be an issue because of how much I liked it and how I knew as soon as I had regular access to it, I would be doing it all the time. Cause the only thing that stopped me early on was the fact that it was hard to get a hold of that it was it was scarce and that you're a teenager and drinking age in America is 21 so I got sober at 19 I've never had a legal drink anywhere actually because the only time I came here and drank two I was 17 so it wasn't legal here either but I remember I knew it was going to be an issue when I went to boarding school my final year of boarding school one of my friend's parents let us drink at her house every weekend and then it was happening every weekend then i was starting to try other drugs and then college floodgates are open because you can have it whenever you want there's no rules no and when i started not being able to go to sleep sober that became probably the most worrying part but again i was always in a mindset where i was like i'm gonna figure this out after college but like i've been through so much so like i'm gonna do whatever like i think it was like a trauma you're like i've been through so much so this is

36:27Chris Olsen: okay for me to do that excuse i'm okay to be doing this right now i think also when you're a teenager

36:32Jamie Laing: and a lot of those things happen to you at once you're one of your core beliefs becomes that your life is chaotic and that your life isn't good and that's just how it's going to be so you don't look to change it and you don't look to make it better you start believing that that is the reality and then you continue to play into that i wasn't thinking i need to turn this around one day so i can live a good life i thought i'm not going to live a good life so let me do what i need to do now. And then if I really need to figure it out, I will and try to figure out something else. But I had no dreams anymore.

37:03Jamie Laing: I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future. I just thought as long as I can do something that is going to like keep me alive, then that's what I'll do. But the aspiration and drive to get anything done didn't really come to me until I got sober, but also mainly until I think social media started working for me and I realized that I was good at something. But I think sometimes it does take the external validation, at least for me. But in the moment, I believed my life was bad and I believed that there was no fixing it. And also when I walked into my kitchen one random morning and saw my entire family there, I realized that or I knew immediately that that needed to happen.

37:47Chris Olsen: Because what did they say? When you walked in, what did they say?

37:51Jamie Laing: I like I was very hungover that day because I was drinking probably every night at that point and it was a Wednesday that it happened because I didn't have class that morning and I walked in I think the interventionist who was some random guy was like Chris why don't you take a seat and I was just like right people ask me if I thought about running or if I was like really upset and I again no there was no thought that was surprised about this i was like okay i mean yes it was surprising to walk into the room and be like that why my entire family is here but i knew what it was immediately i was like yeah i mean i'm currently extremely hungover i've been doing other drugs i've been drinking every night that summer before my second year of college happened was probably the most messy time of it all.

38:44Jamie Laing: And my family was around for a lot of it, so they saw it. And I think that's probably when it got kicked into gear to plan this. But I walked in, interventionists had me sit down, and then everyone has to read these things called impact letters, where they tell you how your drinking has impacted them in a negative way. And those ones are kind of like, they are really tough to read or hear, but they're also full of love for you because it's like, we believe you can be better. So this is what's been happening. And we miss the version of you that was the happy kid because I was such a, I was a very energetic, excited, happy kid.

39:22Jamie Laing: And like to watch me turn into a dark cloud, I think must've been very hard for everyone who was in that room. And everyone goes around and reads these impact letters. And then the interventionist says, we have two tickets down to Florida to go to rehab today if you want to accept this help. And I remember being like, okay, well, I definitely agree with all of you that I'm a mess, but I can't leave school now. Let me do this maybe when the year ends. Let me do this when college ends. I just can't do this now. I had no idea what was going to come after me saying no. I thought it was more of a conversation to be had no it was not a conversation it was a it would i guess it was they were kind of telling me that i had autonomy in it but if i chose to not go that i was going to be cut off from everyone and not just cut off from everyone what happens next is everyone has a packet of papers in front of them and their impact letter is on the front and when you say no everyone's instructed to turn the page so i said no and they were like and the interventionist said so are you saying you're refusing help and i was like yes i guess and then he was like okay and looked around and then everyone turns their page and i'm like this is like a horror film what are you guys talking about uh what you don't need to read anything else and then it starts wow letters about how you will no longer exist to them i remember the first letter that was written to me was my aunt and she was in the room and she was telling me that i was no longer going to exist to her.

40:55Jamie Laing: My uncle got in my face and started like yelling at me. My mom told me that my, that my grandma was not, was, wasn't going to speak to me anymore, that she was going to tell her not to speak to me anymore. And then I remember it kept going around and it got to my sister and she started sobbing and she was just like, don't, please don't make dad read his letter. and I think I knew in that moment that that meant that I was no longer going to be a part of the family and that I was just going to kind of be cut off from everyone and when I saw her crying that much and she's in touch with her emotions we've been emotional together but seeing her get to that level was really upsetting to me and my dad started crying and I've only ever seen my dad cry like when my dog died and so to know that it's at that level and my dad just misses his son who he tried so hard to connect with as a kid and I knew in that moment that I had to go and that I wasn't about to be cut off and I wasn't about to like tell these people that my drinking mattered more than my relationship with them and I went off to rehab that day and they told me it was a 90 day program.

42:18Jamie Laing: And as soon as I got there, it was very clear that it was going to take however long it was going to take. Because I think some of the first people I talked to there were like, I've been here for seven or eight months. I was like, what are you talking about? And it was September. So I knew I was going to miss the entire school year and have to start again. And it just became my reality. But I had to accept, it became radical acceptance because you're on the plane going down and you're just, I didn't even get to say bye to most of my friends because I literally, our flight was that morning.

42:47Chris Olsen: Wow.

42:48Jamie Laing: And so it was just like, pack up all your stuff and go.

42:50Chris Olsen: Do you know what, it's weird though. I look at that and see that's the sort of ultimate form of love from your family. A hundred percent. Do you know what, it's weird. A hundred percent. I almost like, weirdly, and so I never really spoken about this, but weirdly in some ways I'm envious of you because in my twenties, when I was doing a show over here, my drinking was so out of control. It was crazy. And my family never stepped in. While on a show. While on a show. because the show was so, it was just a whole thing. And I wish at time, I have another friend who did the show with who went through the same thing.

43:19Chris Olsen: And he says, I wish our family stepped in. I wish they had done something. And yes, we would have pushed them away or done whatever. But if my family had said, if you don't do this, you're not part of this family anymore. You would have gone, I probably would have said, Jesus, okay. I would have snapped into some sort of reality.

43:37Jamie Laing: Yeah.

43:37Chris Olsen: Which it was this like endless sort of thing that was going on.

43:41Jamie Laing: Yeah. I think It is a very hard position to be in for a family as well because cutting someone off doesn't really feel like love. Even if you're doing it out of love, you're telling someone it's a lot of tough love. You're telling someone they can't be a part of your life because you know they're better. And because you know if they turn things around, they will be the person that they once were. But in the moment, it feels like you're telling them you hate them. and that can be a really, that's the easiest way to receive it at the time. And I think there are a lot of addicts who do receive it that way in that moment.

44:18Jamie Laing: And I think I did have a hard time with it in the moment, but I also knew somewhere in my head that this was love and that this was them doing this because they wanted me to stay a part of their life. They didn't want me to not be a part of their life. And everyone at the intervention, I think, like says to me, that must've been like such a hard day for you. And I usually turn it right back around to them because it was a hard day for me, but I was the one that was causing the pain. I was causing the difficulty. Like, it was a hard day for you. You guys all had to travel there and tell someone that you loved that they've been impacting you very negatively and that they're going to be cut off if they don't accept the help in the moment.

45:02Chris Olsen: And you're eight years sober now, right? Is it? Yeah. Which is amazing. Eight and a half. Eight and a half, which is amazing. Dude, congrats, man. And it's the most, what I heard you talk about, which was so interesting, is that you said when there's one addiction that happens, which is alcohol, drugs, whatever it may be, when you come out, that addiction almost has to replace that. You have to find something else. Right. And you, you kind of said that that sort of drift into your, into sort of sexualizing yourself in some ways. Wasn't.

45:28Jamie Laing: Yeah. I mean, I think I was just seeking validation. I was always seeking validation because my treatment center was not a place that gave you validation. If you did something well that was expected and if you did something wrong, you were going to die. That was really, and I'm not even exaggerating, if you made one wrong misstep, they would play out the tape for you and show you how that was going to lead you to a relapse and die, basically. And that wrong thing could be anything like breaking a rule, could be anything like spending too much time with someone you weren't supposed to spend time with, even if they were at the facility.

46:01Jamie Laing: they had they had crazy consequences too where if you threatened to leave but then didn't you had to pack your bags and then walk around with them everywhere because you like needed to feel the weight of what leaving felt like that's fierce yeah and the walk from the residential building to clinical building was about a mile and a half so you're walking down a highway for like 30 or 40 minutes to the clinical building with packed suitcases which people packed for like three to six months of stuff i never threatened to leave i actually one of my issues there was that i never broke a rule because i was so terrified i saw what all of these people had to do when you broke a rule and it actually kind of made the therapists have a really hard time with me because part of the philosophy of treatment there was giving you a consequence and

46:54Chris Olsen: making you survive it while sober you weren't doing that i was not because i was like it got

46:58Jamie Laing: to a point where we were at month five or six. And I was like, thinking in the back of my head, we should be wrapping this up soon because I'm clearly doing well. And my family therapist was like, she sat me down and said something along the lines of Chris, if you don't act authentically and break a rule, because you clearly are not acting authentically because if you're here, you're already a rule breaker. So show us who you are so we can help you. Wow. That's a head fuck. And I was like, Jesus Christ, I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to be better. I thought the entire point of being, do you want me to go out and relapse just so I can like see how horrible it is?

47:34Jamie Laing: So they can just go see that's it. That's you being your authentic self. I mean, it's hard. Yeah. And that wouldn't be what they would say. I would be torn apart from making a mistake. I remember they moved me off to a halfway house very quickly to give me more freedom and see what I did. But I never broke a rule. and I think because I never got positive validation, even when you leave, even when you graduate the program, they're just like, okay, good luck. And you're like, okay, I've spent seven months being torn apart by all of you, but thank you for the send off. And you're also encouraged as patients to go after each other.

48:12Jamie Laing: And if you're not going after each other, you don't care about each other. So if a therapist says someone did something wrong and the other patients don't chime in on why they did something wrong and how horrible it is, then you're contributing to their relapse and death. So anyway, I leave rehab seeking validation, of course. And I think it did come out in ways on social media that I was just, it really was, I had gotten really into fitness. I was seeking validation for that. I was seeking validation for being, I don't know, living, living a better life than I was, I guess in a way I don't think I was seeking validation for anything specific I think I just desperately wanted to be validated because I was like I did so much work why isn't anyone telling me I did good yeah exactly even though I think I agree with the point that it maybe doesn't need to be said because my life should be the validation that I'm getting I should just be happy that things are going well but words of affirmation guy I think I really wanted it or needed it in a way.

49:23Chris Olsen: So let's talk about social media for a second because how many followers do you have total?

49:26Jamie Laing: Oh, I don't know.

49:27Chris Olsen: Let's just get it out there.

49:30Jamie Laing: There's 13 point something on my main account on TikTok and I know there's 6.7 on my spam account because everyone comments 6.7.

49:39Chris Olsen: So it's over 20 million followers combined.

49:42Jamie Laing: Sure. And then Instagram is to something. It is a lot. It is definitely like it becomes unfathomable in a way. There are certain times I look at my main page on TikTok and I see the 13 million and I'm just like, when did that happen?

49:57Chris Olsen: But here's a question for you, right? Okay, if I was to remove all your followers now, every single one, do you think if I said, right, the next year you could build it back up again?

50:06Jamie Laing: It would be much harder to build it to the place that it is now because of how saturated social media is. I think I could get a platform again. I think I would be able to regain some sort of platform, but I don't think, I think timing is a lot of -

50:23Chris Olsen: Agreed. But then if someone was listening to this now and is a huge fan of yours and also thinking, you know what, social media, I love that. I have that. What would you say to that person? Say, how do you become successful in this saturated place?

50:34Jamie Laing: I think my advice now is way different than it would have been at the beginning of it, where I think at the beginning I would say, you just like just post as much as possible just try anything i think that there is still truth in that and i think there is a way to find success in that but i think the center point of what you want out of it matters the most and if you want to share a specific thing or if you want to share a specific side of yourself or a specific talent hone in on that and even if it's not working right away, figure out a way to kind of like gain an audience from it. And then you want to take the data that you learn when something does work.

51:14Jamie Laing: If you have that one video that does work, yes, recreating it in the exact same way could be helpful. I'll use my filter series, for example, where I remember I did one of these like celebrity filters, maybe like two years, three years ago now in 2023 and I saw it really worked. And I knew clearly that there's many ways to do that again and reformat that because it gives you so many options, but you can't, I couldn't just do the exact same thing every single time. I had to make it interesting in a different way each time. And I think that is true for any type of content, similar to the series I did where I was delivering coffee.

51:53Jamie Laing: It had to be someone new every time. And I did not expect that series to to take off in the way that it did. I'm very proud of it, but also it became, I rode the wave with it. I think you need to have some sort of -

52:07Chris Olsen: It was called flying for coffee. Yeah.

52:08Jamie Laing: Yeah. I think you have to have some sort of like, sense of being able to give it up to the universe to see where the universe takes it. And surrender is what I was looking for. You have to have a sense of surrender

52:20Chris Olsen: and you have to get rid of like embarrassment. Which is the hardest part of all of it. You have to be free, right? Which would have come from your kind of like theater background where you would just be free on stage. You're able to be free on social media.

52:32Jamie Laing: I do think that's why a lot of theater kids become successful later in life. Because we're used to embarrassing ourselves. And embarrassing yourself and being a little bit cringe is the way to try anything.

52:44Chris Olsen: Because I heard this quote, which was from Austin Butler, who actually you did. I did do a coffee video with him. You did do a coffee.

52:49Jamie Laing: My close friend.

52:50Chris Olsen: Yes. Yes. He said something along the lines of like, embarrassment is an emotion that we need to explore more greatly.

52:57Jamie Laing: Right.

52:57Chris Olsen: Like you need to lean into embarrassment.

52:59Jamie Laing: Which I do think sometimes, you know, some people watching that might have a hard time hearing that from him. You know, like, okay, hottest man in the world, Elvis, what are we talking about? Like, yes, be embarrassed. Let's see you get messy, Austin Butler. Like, what does that look like for you? I do think it is true, though. And I, he definitely cares about his craft. So he's saying that from a point of honesty. But I think in my social media career, I was already at a point where I wasn't scared to embarrass myself or be cringe, which I think actually puts people off of me a lot because I feel like sometimes people get annoyed with how much I'm willing to just like do whatever.

53:40Jamie Laing: and like, I don't know. And I think because I'm not really always worried about my perception, I'm okay if I have a glam bot that people say is bad. I'm okay if I have a cringy moment. Like - That's it. I think it becomes annoying because the societal expectation is that when you do something embarrassing, you should be embarrassed about it and you should want to change.

54:05Chris Olsen: You've nailed it. That's - No, dude, Chris, you have - That's exactly what people are. people as humans, we're so restrictive. We restrict us. So we get embarrassed by something. We should feel embarrassed. And what you do with your series where you're, you know, you do a therapy series where you talk about, you know, what you're going through mentally, right? And you you're so open on social media and people are jealous of that, that you can be so open with it and get traction. I think people, people who see success on social media sometimes are, it's almost like a jealousy thing in a way, because they wish I could do that if I let

54:38Jamie Laing: myself go a little bit more yeah i'm i mean i always have a hard time with personally taking on the mindset that any hater is just jealous of me in a way but i i do know that there is some truth to it and i think it's not necessarily that the primary emotion is jealousy i think sometimes the primary emotion is like anger towards the both of us because it's maybe at their self too where they see what I'm doing and they believe they could do it better. And my retort to that is then please do. And not in a way of like, then do it, bitch. It's like, I truly encourage you to follow it. I want everyone to succeed because there is enough space for all of us.

55:24Jamie Laing: If I could do it from my boyfriend's apartment in New York and just become who I am now, I think anyone could, But I think a lot of people have a really hard time putting themselves out there, especially in this current age of social media where it is very volatile and people can be very mean. If I'm a teenager, if I'm a younger person who wants to put out content, I am going to think about what people are going to say about it or how people are going to feel about it. And that is going to drive what I post. I'm coming at it from a different perspective because of everything I've been through.

55:57Jamie Laing: but I do think sometimes the anger that comes from seeing me at a place like the Golden Globes is coming from a place of them believing that I did not do the right work to make it there or that they would have done it better or that I should have done something else to get there or that I shouldn't be there at all because I was having a little bit of this revelation after the Golden Globes when I saw a post that was maybe like Yahoo Entertainment posted it. And it was them asking everyone who they were talking to on the carpet, what their current obsession is. And I'm weaved in with these people at the very end of it.

56:37Jamie Laing: And I say, heated rivalry. I didn't even know what hockey was before this. That's all I said. There are so many people. The video starts with Connor's story from heated rivalry. There are a lot of big stars in that video. And I remember seeing it and like reposting it and thinking it was a funny video. And I opened the comment section and the top five comments were about being angry at me that I was there. I mean, I think one of the top comment that had like 15 ,000 likes at that point was something about like, why is Chris Olsen there again? And then, and then the rest of them were to like, get him away, all of this stuff, which used to really upset me.

57:15Jamie Laing: I mean, that is, that was like the impetus for one of my breakdowns on social media but it was i i had posted or a love island fan account posted a photo of me with two of the girls from love island usa and the top comment was like get that like get chris wholson away from them and i crashed out that day because i was like what the fuck do you think i'm gonna do like if i were problematic or if i were like a criminal i guess this would make sense but like I'm not. My crime is being annoying. And you're saying, get me away from them because what? What's going to happen? They're going to become annoying.

57:51Jamie Laing: They're going to catch it from me. They're fine. These are some gorgeous Love Island girls. They came up to me too because they enjoyed what I was doing. So I got really mad at it at that point. But when I saw it at the Golden Globes after this, I remember there was no anger that came up in me for the first time, which I think - That's amazing. It definitely had to do with taking the break and definitely had to do with re-centering myself and how I view myself and how I view social media. But I remember just being very curious about it because I was thinking about how there are so many other people in that video.

58:25Jamie Laing: There's so much to comment about. And it seems that one of the strongest opinions here is anger about me. And while initially that would be very upsetting, it's more curiosity and also like interest on why that is happening. And also, if I'm really honest with myself, it is a marker of success. Totally is. Because if I'm there and if most of the comments are talking about me, and I really hate to take on this mindset because I think sometimes it sounds really gross and it's like, haters are just making me more famous. But I'm like, you are all talking about me. And it's very fascinating to me.

59:06Chris Olsen: It's like the WWE, right? WWE is like, in a sense, WWE was so great. The people who are the most successful are the ones who are loved but also disliked. yeah like and that is the sort of aim of success and if you can kind of have that where people really like you but then there's a lot of people dislike you then in a way especially in the entertainment space it's kind of a interesting space to be because not everyone's gonna love you yeah and not everyone's gonna dislike it'll never happen and so but that they're having that

59:32Jamie Laing: conversation it's kind of amazing and i remember megan trainer told me that like really early on in our friendship that she was starting she knew she was doing well again because she was starting to receive hate again because once you're receiving hate it means you're expanding past the audience that is just going to like love you no matter what i remember hearing that and being like oh that's like kind of rough because i i had a i had a really privileged long time on social media of kind of unanimous enjoyment of my content that's what it felt like it felt like i went through a breakup and then i felt on top of the world because people were really rooting for me to like do well in this next chapter.

1:00:13Jamie Laing: And then I did well for long enough and it became to a point where I was like, okay, now you're getting to a point where we actually don't think you deserve everything you've gotten. So we need to bring you back down. And yeah, I remember just looking at this comment section in this new era of my life and being like, this is, I can't be mad about this because if all of these people are talking about me, I must be doing something right. And it's not like I'm gonna listen to them and go away and they're always going to be there. And so it's now up to them whether they want to continue talking about me and whether they want to continue to have a bad feeling about me and not up to me to fix that because I can't and I never will be able to, and I don't want to at this point.

1:00:57And if you want to continue being angry about me, that's a lot of weight to hold

1:01:01Jamie Laing: for yourself and also kind of i i like i have to that's the it's a dumb thing to be what you're angry because i'm annoying like oh my god if that is what you're taking on in life like let yourself rest take some weight off your shoulders like stop thinking about me but also if you're gonna continue talking about me you're continuing to talk about me and you're feeding into it it's just like how people say and i'm not comparing myself to taylor swift okay but it's how people say like taylor swift's haters are her biggest fans because they can't stop talking about her they can't stop talking about how annoying it is she is everywhere and how much of like she's not really good at what she does i don't think she cares what you think miss billionaire is is happy also not even having social media on her phone probably most of the time like you're you become it starts you're starting to scream into the void in a way and i think one of the ways i've started visualizing it too is if someone were to yell that comment at me across the street or like on the street while i'm walking past them i would be like oh crazy person like i would i would be a little bit like scared i would be like oh who you yeah if someone was like that fuck you chris i would be like oh like it really would more just be like let me walk around you like hope this person heals i would be i would be really scared of them but of course like that's not the landscape of social media and people on social media who are commenting these hate things don't think they are that person but you are and like even if you're a young person who's listening to this and that that is what that generation is becoming it will be like the hardest thing to break through because if you lead your life if if you start living your life out of fear of people being mean about what is going to happen you will never find out who you are you'll always just be a version of yourself that you created to try to make other people like you or a version of yourself that you created to not make any waves and then you'll have no sense of self or creativity and you'll be upset that other people are having success when you never tried to figure out who you were so you could give yourself the grounds to have success in the first place

1:03:21Jamie Laing: chris you're unbelievable thank you okay these words of affirmation like i don't know what to do

1:03:26Chris Olsen: can I just say listen I want to say just thank you man thank you for like coming on for talking about this for being so open thank you like and also just from my side keep sharing what you're doing keep entertaining people keep spreading that love because there needs to be more of that without a doubt and I really appreciate it man you're freaking amazing and excellent every single way

1:03:45Jamie Laing: thank you

1:03:46Chris Olsen: you truly are

1:03:47Jamie Laing: thank you

1:03:47Chris Olsen: Chris we like to end the conversation with eight questions you ready for this oh quick is this rapid

1:03:51Jamie Laing: fire yeah good luck to me for keeping it rapid bed okay what's a saying or phrase that makes you smile or cheers you up a boyfriend saying i love

1:03:59Chris Olsen: you he says it every day best compliment anyone's ever given you oh that i've made them laugh

1:04:11Jamie Laing: 100 the best what scares you most about yourself i guess sometimes it can be my my level of self-awareness because I think sometimes I'm so, I'm so like, I'm so tapped into my perception. I get it. That I don't think is a necessarily bad thing a lot of the time, but I think there's a fine line of it teetering into negativity.

1:04:37Chris Olsen: When was the last time you cried?

1:04:39Jamie Laing: Well, like I almost did right now, like, or during this podcast, but my mouth was so dry that like, I was like, I think I'm so dry that no tears are coming out. But like, I feel, I feel, I kept like, my voice was cracking. I was like, okay. And then I had the fear right after it that I was like, are people going to think that I was fake crying? Because I was like, oh my God. No, boyfriend can tell you I cry all the time. But I think, yeah, it was like now, but before that, it was probably like watching, it was watching Fantastic Four on the plane. It's great. Yes, it was watching Fantastic Four.

1:05:19Yeah.

1:05:20Chris Olsen: What song would you want to be played at your funeral?

1:05:24Jamie Laing: It would be an orchestral song from the movie Interstellar called Cornfield Chase. Because that's the song that I listen to when I want to connect to my grandma who passed away. And I just feel like it is such a song that represents connecting to people who are in a different realm.

1:05:43Chris Olsen: Brilliant. What's your guilty pleasure?

1:05:46Jamie Laing: I'm not really guilty about any of my pleasures. I will have whatever I want when I want it. And not from a point of being like, I'm just going to buy myself anything. If I want a sweet treat, I'm going to have a sweet treat. What's the point of restricting? Life is too short.

1:06:01Chris Olsen: What turns you off?

1:06:05Jamie Laing: Arrogance. And talking to someone like they're dumb. I think because back to the conversation about the intelligence and me feeling like I wasn't an intelligent kid growing up, I feel like at my all-boys school, I would get talked to like I was dumb a lot of the time. And that gave me this internal feeling that I was. And so now when it happens, because I know I'm not in certain ways, I'm like, talk to me like that.

1:06:29Chris Olsen: What turns you on? Harrison. What do you like most about yourself?

1:06:39Jamie Laing: My heart and my care for other people and how I always just really want to make other people feel good.

1:06:45Chris Olsen: Bonus one. Yes. Who's the best celebrity You've interacted with And the worst

1:06:54Jamie Laing: Some people are already going to know the worst I can't say it by name

1:06:58Chris Olsen: Isn't the worst They think in the comments And it always is

1:07:02Jamie Laing: Yeah

1:07:02Chris Olsen: You did a flying coffee thing with

1:07:04Jamie Laing: I might have The best

1:07:07Chris Olsen: Best

1:07:09Jamie Laing: Has to be I mean Megan always comes first But Gaga Get out of here She's the best person in the world I'm obsessed with her. I love her so much. I love her as an artist. She was the first person I was ever a fan of, basically. My first concert, too, was the Monster Ball. I've been a fan forever. I mean, I was a little gay kid in D.C. Like, Lady Gaga came out with Born This Way right after I came out. It was like she... She, like, spoke to you. Exactly. It was incredible. And now I've had the privilege of working with her a little bit. And she's just... She's such an artist. she cares so much about her creativity and also how it is affecting the people that consume her stuff and that love her and she loves her fans so much too and i think and it's so authentic the love that she has for her fans because in some of our conversations she would talk about it from such a an honest place and i think a lot of the time i don't necessarily hear that from celebrities which i don't think is necessarily a bad thing i don't think it doesn't mean they care but I think she really does and I think that's felt for sure.

1:08:18Chris Olsen: Chris, this has been amazing. Thank you so much, buddy. I loved every second.

1:08:22Jamie Laing: I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having Harrison with us too and for giving us your sweets.

1:08:29Chris Olsen: Chris, we love you. Thanks so much, buddy. Thank you. Man, you're amazing. Guys, what an episode. I really hope you enjoyed it. Chris, if you're listening, you're one of the funniest sweetest people in the entire world and to chris's boyfriend harrison man thank you for getting chris on the podcast i think sometimes we go through life going to the gym doing our work chasing relationships all those things but actually sometimes we don't do the work on ourselves and chris is kind of a prime example of someone who's done that work who knows himself once we know ourselves much better that's when we can be much happier i know in my experience that was kind of really true now I really really hope you enjoyed the episode if you really like to please subscribe we couldn't do the show without you guys so we love our community so if you could subscribe to the show that would be amazing and of course we're going to be back next week for another episode of Great Company