Celeste Barber: the FUNNIEST woman on the internet

0:00Hello there. Did you know that you can hear all of the things that my guests might have failed to divulge in the main episode by joining us in our subscriber community. community, Failing With Friends. It's where you will hear really riveting pieces of information like Olivia Atwood's dream date location or Miranda Hart's advice on performing bodily functions in front of your partner. Just follow the link in the podcast notes and we will see you there.

0:36Welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast where I ask my guests three times they've failed in life and what, if anything, they've learned along the way. I'm not someone who's like, oh God, I shouldn't be here. I'm like, why hasn't this happened quicker? Why not me? And now we're going to move on because I'll cry. Do you know what I feel like next Super Bowl should be Janet Jackson with you as her backup sponsor. Stop! Let's manifest it.

1:02This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there. Although she doesn't yet know it, my guest today has been an integral part of my feminist awakening. I was first introduced to the work of Celeste Barber by my cousin, who said she was, quote, the funniest woman on the internet.

1:42And it's certainly true that Barber's Instagram posts are utterly hilarious. but they're also quietly radical and have encouraged a generation of women to feel better about their bodies. Barber began her account in 2015 when, as a jobbing actor, she started recreating celebrity and fashion shoots, skewering unobtainable beauty standards in a series of parody posts. She now has almost 10 million followers, including Reese Witherspoon, Chelsea handler and the designer Tom Ford who ended up hiring her for a fashion campaign. Barbara grew up in the small coastal area of Tweed Heads in Australia and caught the bug for performing in a local dance concert aged three.

2:26She trained in drama at the University of Western Sydney, later finding a talent for comedy. Since Instagram made her globally famous, Barbara has starred in Netflix dramas, written books, and toured one-woman shows across the world. Now she returns with Backup Dancer, her latest live tour, and has also found the time to set up a beauty brand, Bowie, which aims to celebrate the best version of you and continues Barber's mission to challenge unrealistic beauty standards, instead portraying the messy, inclusive glory of real life. it is by any metric an impressive journey for someone who once had a bit part in home and away I believe your career is defined by what you say no to Barber says but that's also quite a smug thing for me to say because I have become quite successful Celeste Barber welcome to how to fail I've got a little emotional hearing that it's like oh she's done a lot she sounds nice she is But it's me.

3:30She has done a lot. And thank you for what you've done for me personally. It's really, really important what you do. And I know it's funny too, but I just, I'm so glad that I got a chance to say that. So thank you. I appreciate that. I really do. It's not, it means the world to me when women come up to me and say that. Because you're right, it's not just funny. There's a definite meaning behind it and purpose. What are some of the things that you've said no to? Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember when I wrote that because it sounds like I'm getting offered just, you know, a plethora of roles and I just keep saying no to them.

4:09The main thing that I say no to is, I always say no to, is campaigns that make women feel shit about themselves. I have this thing when, whenever it comes, you know, across my team's desk, I always say I don't support any products that make women feel they need to look a certain way to feel a certain way. I don't have any interest in that and I cannot begin to tell you the amount of people that come to me to promote the most absurd things and I'm like you're not at all aligned with what I like do you look at my Instagram account but I absolutely not go away detox tea go away I don't want to work with you slimming shakes go away I mean I'd be so much richer if I said yes to those things but I just have no interest in it what made the tom ford campaign different well when he i mean well it's tom ford i know i mean that's enough of an answer i mean that's it when he reached out it was i mean he's the king and the queen of the industry of the fashion industry and when they reached out to me I instantly thought oh you've got a sense of humor you you get it you get what I'm doing so when he reached out I shat myself I mean are you kidding you know the sound an email makes when it comes in to your inbox that hadn't even finished that sound and I was like reply all and like cc'd all the girls that bullied me at school I was like yes when how and let's make it happen and then when we worked together it was still to this day one of the greatest creative experiences of my life because we fully collaborated in every sense of the word.

5:51And him understanding me taking the piss out of the industry is an important thing. That's why I jumped on board 100%. Do you still text him? Do you have a little... We're still in contact. He's the most delicious human being. I cannot speak highly enough. Now, for anyone who I don't know where they've been but maybe they haven't seen your amazing Instagram content. I would love you to describe the process of how you go about making one of your videos and what it actually is. And there was one recently that I found hilarious and it's this sort of beautiful fitness model doing yoga stretches in a wooden Japanese tar bar.

6:35Oh yes, in a tub, yes. Yes, which you then parody in a hilarious way in something that looks like a freezer? It's a freezer. It's an icebox that we have in our garage. Okay. Yeah. Can you just talk us through the process of doing it and what you're trying to achieve by doing it? I mean, it varies depending on the post. Sometimes I will just see it and within 10 minutes of seeing it, I've parried it and I've posted it. Like it's just, it's that simple. It comes to me, it's super easy. Other times there's, you know, a lot more involved. The whole reason behind it is to make people laugh and to make us women who don't feel seen or appreciated because we aren't a size zero or because we don't fit a particular beauty standard, it's to make us feel seen and to have a laugh and to realise that the fashion and the beauty industry can be very dangerous.

7:37and I want to come in and I have come in and make it fun again because that's all it needs to be they're not they're not actually breaking news they're not curing cancer by putting a nice pair of pants on someone it's not that deep with you know social media it's always on so you can't turn it off and it gets into your psyche at 2am when you can't breastfeed your baby because they won't sleep and I just wanted to cut through that but first and foremost by making people laugh because I think you know comedy humor is the greatest equalizer you laugh and you all then kind of come back to the same level and you then take it from there so I have a lot to say but I know myself I don't like being preached to and my currency is my sense of humor you know I don't have the currency of looking banging at all times and that's important to me so well put and that particular post where it's the model in the bath and then you are doing the same thing in your icebox I think it illuminates so much of what you've just said and what makes you so brilliant to watch because it's the juxtaposition of the unobtainable with the everyday do you consider what you do brave and is it annoying when people ask that?

8:58Early on I got that a lot. It's so brave what you do. It's so brave that you're putting your size 14 body in a bikini next to a woman who's a size zero. That is brave of you. That is empowering. I mean, I never got the empowering to start with. I got the brave to start with. Whereas the people I would parody, it would be, you know they're so empowering to women to just you know own your body and get out there and I'm all for that but then I was so wow that's brave of her I don't know how you're doing that so I have an interesting relationship with that word because I also I am a brave person not just because I put this body in a thong and put it next to a bikini model but because I've done a plethora of other things that I'm really proud of.

9:46And has everything that you've gone through in the last 10 years it is now. Has it changed your relationship with how you feel about yourself? Yeah, I think so. I'm really proud of what I've achieved. I'm really proud that I backed myself and have gotten to where I am by completely staying true to who I am. I think because it's on such a bigger level now than what I have experienced, you know, over time, I do have to kind of still lean into that and go, no, just take stock, stay who you are, stay true to who you are and keep moving along. It's weird because you know how people talk about imposter syndrome?

10:30I don't have it. I really don't because I feel as though I'm not someone who's like, oh, God, I shouldn't be here. I'm like, why hasn't this happened quicker? Why not me? Why wouldn't it be me? Why wouldn't it be whoever it is? So I don't know if that's kind of a weird way to look at it But I've never kind of thought, oh, no, I don't earn this place with my success. I've always been like, well, yeah, come on. I'm annoyed that it didn't happen when I was 20. Well, I had to wait until I was in my late 30s, early 40s to get success. I was like, come on, hurry up. Well, on that point, actually, let's talk about Bowie, which I absolutely love the branding of it and what you've done with it.

11:13because it's very much like we know that you're really busy, so just slap this on and it works and it does what you need it to. And there was this brilliant advertising campaign, which was an unflattering school photo of you. And the strapline was not everyone wants to look younger, which I thought was so brilliant. Talk to me a bit about your core values in Bowie and also the kind of empowerment of age that you feel and the fact that you did experience success slightly older on a global scale, whether you felt that, sorry, it's so many questions in one, whether you felt that success is sort of more, even better because you know yourself.

11:56Absolutely. And because I earned it. I was even with Instagram when that all started kicking off for me, as soon as that started taking off, I instantly booked a theatre space three months time to do a live show. That's amazing. Because I wanted to earn my stripes. I wanted to earn my keep. Anyone can be famous online. Anyone. You have a cat that has a limp? Great. You're going to the Oscars. Do you know what I mean? That lady who taught us all how to fold our undies, she went to the Oscars. Anyone can be famous. I don't have any interest in that. I want to earn my keep in this industry. I love being in the entertainment industry.

12:33I love working and I want to earn my strength. The cream rises to the top, I believe, so I wanted to earn my keep. I think it's the best thing in the world that I got success later in life because earning it, I wanted to earn my place. If I got this success at 20, fucking monster. I just absolutely not. I wouldn't have known what I was doing or why I was doing it. I would have been quite bratty. It would have been fun but it would have been shit as well. And now with Bowie that I've started, it's the same thing with what I do. It's cutting through bullshit. The beauty industry has become so elitist.

13:14You need to watch a 75-minute makeup tutorial to learn how to do your mascara. And if you don't know how to contour, buy these exorbitantly priced products. Well, then it's kind of a status thing. And I'm like, no, I love makeup. Makeup's really, really fun. I did a makeup course when I was younger when I used to dance and I've always loved makeup, I think mainly because I have a face for makeup. I'm all right without makeup but when I put makeup on, I'm banging. And I wanted to create something specifically for my audience, for me, for my girls over the age of 35 because I found that the majority of things in the makeup space that were targeted to women over 35 were very specifically like anti-aging serum or anti-aging cream or these new concealers to cover up those lines because don't you dare age and I thought well we are fucking aging like and get work done don't get work done whatever we are aging and I want to celebrate that and that's how I why I created a buoy.

14:21It's five products to get you out the door and to bring out the best version of you. That's all I'm interested in is the best version of myself and the best version of my excellent audience who I love. So well put.

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15:20Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Let's get on to your failures because your first failure is your failure to sit still, as you put it. And you mentioned your ADHD in this context. So tell me a little bit about young Celeste at school. What was that like for you? Shit. And now we're going to move on because I'll cry. No, no. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. It was just tough. like a lot of people who now later in life have realized you know been diagnosed with ADHD it's really fucking tough it's tough as an adult it's tough as a kid and like I was diagnosed at 16 so that was in the 90s and it was really tricky because back then ADHD people are like oh you got ADHD oh no it was just ADD back then like I just got teased all the time because I was a lot full on I'm loud I'm I'm really funny and it just seems attention seeking so you know that's a lot for kids to handle um so it's all it was always an insult you're an ADD and then when I got diagnosed because there was so little known about it so kids would tease me and be like you're ADHD and you're like oh that means you're dumb you're stupid you're an idiot you're attention seeking You're a loser.

16:44You're loud. And then you get the official diagnosis in the 90s and they pretty much double down and go, yeah, it is all those things. Symptoms of having ADHD are you're loud, you're annoying. So since the age of 16, that's just been put into my head. They're like, well, you are officially all these annoying things. So we're going to give you drugs to quieten you the fuck down. so that was really hard to kind of grapple with because I was officially told that I was all those things now what a magical wonderland it is for people a lot so many women in their 40s are going oh my god I've got so many answers now because I've actually been diagnosed and people say that they find it a superpower that is not me I I have a hate hate relationship with it I hate it.

17:37I hate having it. I think it holds me back. I struggle a lot with it. What do you hate about it? I hate that I can't dive in fully to an idea, a creative idea. I have so many excellent things that I want to do. There's so many scripts I want to write, so many films I want to do. There's so many books, so many more books I want to write. I can't do it. My brain will not let me. and when I like when I wrote my book I still feel as though I only just scraped the surface of every chapter because it's like get it done get it done can't sit still get it done like there's always something better coming I can never just sit in something and enjoy the success of it that infuriates me no end because I really think I've only scratched the surface of what I'm capable of but because of how my brain works that's all I'll ever know is the surface of it is that partly why you think Instagram has been a really great platform for you because you can do it it's done you put it out 100 % yeah yeah do it it's done put it out post ghost post ghost then you just yeah how difficult does that make working in terms of managing your energy levels because we're talking you're on tour you toured relentlessly over the last few years and I imagine that that's very energy sapping and leads to burnout if you're not careful absolutely touring is very tough I find it very tough I remember hearing Pink you know the singer Pink yes in an interview or something and she said touring is you know it's really tough and she said there's a reason why you don't see many mothers on tour because we can't fucking do it.

19:31It's too, it's too much. So, you know, I live on the other side of the world, but most of my touring now is, I became pitbull. I'm Mr. Worldwide all of a sudden, fucking everywhere. And I just have to drag my kids with me because I can't be away from them. I'm on tour now for six weeks. I cannot be away from them for that long. so there's that but then there's managing me and I find that I find that really hard because I love my work I really love my work and I'm really grateful that I get to have my little chickens coming along as well but the the thing is if I stop when I'm touring I'm fucked like we even got I was saying to you we got to London a week ago and we've had such a beautiful time I've only done one show but even now just trying to you know just doing a few things here and there I'm starting to get sick and it's that thing if I need to go like the clappers or I'll get sick and I I know that at the end of this tour when I get home Jamie like my team have blocked out the diary nothing I need to lie face down because if that isn't put in my diary I won't do it I'll be like, oh, what else should I be doing?

20:43I can't sit still. And I find that as part of ADHD really hard because I don't let myself enjoy my success. Yes, very hard. And also so much of it is wrapped up, I imagine, in drive. It's what drives you, what motivates you, what creates the success. I don't have ADHD, but I do have experience of being bullied at school. And that's part of what my relentless drive is, is proving them wrong still. Age 46. Wow. But I sometimes ask myself if I'll ever be at a point where I feel I've made it or it's enough or I can just rest. Do you think you will? No. Do you think you will? No. I look at it as purpose though.

21:35Yes. Yes. I love that. Say more. I really, really do. I'm so fully on purpose doing what I'm doing. I have no interest in stopping. I have a lot of interest in managing it better so I can do it for the next hundred years, but I don't want to stop. It makes up who I am, what I do. and now having an audience and having my ladies it just is tenfold it it it's something that I really that energizes me it absolutely does I have um two stepdaughters who are now 23 and 25 I've been in their lives since they were two and four so you know forever and I remember when they were in high school and I was like, all right, cool.

22:27So what are we, I'm that mum, I'm that auntie, I'm that step-mom. He's like, what are we all doing? What are we doing in life? Like what, what, what are we interested in? What do we want to do? And I remember Kaya, my oldest stepdaughter, who's actually on tour with us at the moment, a little sausage, she was maybe 15 and she just looked at me with tears in her eyes. She goes, I don't know. I don't know what I want to do. She goes, you were lucky. You did. You knew what you wanted to do since the age of three and I will never, I will always want to be able to have that and I don't have that so I don't know and I'll never forget that conversation with her and since then I'm like fuck I am lucky that I knew what I wanted to do.

23:04I think it saved my life a hundred percent with all the bullshit through school and you know the self-hatred with the lack of dopamine and all that stuff I think having purpose and knowing what I wanted to do has absolutely saved my life. That's very dramatic. No, it makes total sense. There was an interview that I read where your sister was quoted saying that your experience at school almost demolished your sense of self. Oof, yeah. Which is a strong thing and very moving to hear from your own sister, I imagine. My big sister, yeah. Do you think you had to rebuild your sense of self after school?

23:43Absolutely. Not even rebuild, just find it. I don't think I ever had a sense of self. I don't really know if you do as a kid you're like all arms and legs but no it's interesting isn't it because I knew what I wanted to do but I didn't know who I was you know when you go through it when you're younger you're kind of like I just know it's made me really really resilient I'm a very resilient person and not only gave you resilience I imagine but it also gave you laser-like perception for bullies and in a way what you do is counteracting the bullying of a beauty industry that 100 yeah absolutely I see that in my audiences like when I do shows and like little things like when I do meet and greets with people let's say I have 50 people come to a meet and greet I reckon about 43 of those women because you do a meet and greet you say g'day you say hi and it's a lovely moment and then a photo 43 of them like no I don't want to i look horrible i don't want to be in the photo i was like bitch you paid this money you look amazing and they're like no i hate my neck i hate and i was like oh my god we have been just fucking pushed down this is they these women have flown seven hours to come and see me they've got all their girlfriends together they've organized babysitters they've spent way too much fucking money to come and meet me and they don't want to get a photo because they're like no I feel that that breaks my heart so that's also something else that gives me drive I'm like we're not doing this fuck this we're not doing this I want to talk more about your family as it pertains to the second failure but before we move on I want to ask about that phrase that you use post and ghost so your post you post on Instagram and then you're off Instagram do you look at the comments no I try not to but sometimes after a couple of wines I like to get in and kick off a bit.

25:36Sometimes I'm like, let's get into it. I have to say though, majority are lovely. And what about some of the celebrities that you have lampooned so effectively? Who's had a great reaction and who hasn't quite so much? No one has had a bad reaction. Everybody loves me in the industry and no one has ever said a bad word publicly about it. I'm loved far and wide. I mean, that is basically true. I know you've been blocked in the past. Yes, I've been blocked. And look, that's fine. If people don't like it, I don't do it. It's don't hate the play, I hate the game. And if people don't understand it or people don't have a sense of humour, again, that's okay, that's fine.

26:21But I kind of think if Cindy Crawford loves it, if Tom Ford is calling, and I also know I'm on the right side of it. I say that to my kids a lot. If you're on the right side, you have to make sure you're on the right side of something. And I believe that I am. I think that the industry and the people that are massive in the industry and some people who don't like what I do, that's fine. They have a multi-billion dollar industry behind them and backing them and supporting them and celebrating them and they see part when they walk down the street. My girls don't. My ladies, my followers are over here going, I don't look like that in a bikini, but I still think that I kind of deserve nice things.

27:08And that's who I'm talking to. They're my girls. Your second failure is your failure to fit in, which we've heard, I think, started at school. Mm-hmm. And you also say you failed to make friends. Yeah, still. Do you? Yeah, I just have a handful of friends. I just. That's enlightened though. That's the right way to do it. Yeah. Well, it's the only kind of way I know how to do it. I like to keep it tight. It's important to me that I have people around me that are nice to me and who want the best for me because I'm a very, very grounded person too much. Like, oh, no, don't worry. like I sometimes have to you know rally myself a little bit so it's not as though you know you need I need people around me to keep my feet on the ground I'm good I'm a very very generous person and I always look after people and I like to have that with me and that's something that I've realized only in the past few years um Claire actually my business partner with Bowie she's a brilliant example she's so lovely to me and I'll say something about makeup oh no it doesn't matter it's a stupid idea and she's like no this is why you're brilliant you're so clever we love that idea we love that idea of you putting your your school photo on a wall all through major cities and poke it that's so clever and I without having people like that around me I wouldn't do much because I'm always like no it's probably just silly you know it's that self-hatred thing interesting because you said you don't have imposter syndrome but there's part of you that is undermining your own talent yeah oh fuck do i have imposter syndrome maybe you just have an inner critic maybe you have an inner critic rather than massively yes yeah i i look at imposter syndrome of people kind of going oh i don't know i don't belong here this is crazy i mean i don't know if that's the right interpretation of it but it's my understanding and i don't feel like that Like I get asked in interviews a lot, they're like, can you believe you're here?

29:19I'm like, yeah. Yes, I work really hard. You have no idea how to work. Yeah. I mean, I don't work as hard as a nurse. No one does. But absolutely, I'm like, yeah, why wouldn't I be? Talk to me a bit more about failing to fit in and what that means to you and whether you feel it still. Yeah, I do still feel it. It's actually interesting. When I was a few days ago, Jamie and I were talking about it. Jamie's your Jamie's my guy Jamie is he's my tour manager okay there was like I think some events and stuff that were going on and I was said to Jamie oh did we know that they were going on what well that's weird and he was like well no we didn't know that something was happening and I went oh and then that little girl in me is like oh the cool girls were at that and I didn't get invited yeah I still am on the fringes of things and he was like you say no to fucking everything everything you tell us not to bring things to you you say no to everything if you wanted to go to that they would have loved to have had you but it's still that thing in me going well I'm over here doing this thing but ever all the cool girls are over there doing that and I just don't fit into it that's all within me though because then when I am in those situations it's lovely I think you're the coolest girl of all partly because of that sense of outsidership because that is what has given you the ability to skewer things.

30:46You can only do that from a position that actually sees the context rather than being embedded in it. Absolutely. I hold on to that even though I am in it now. My mentality is, well, now that I'm in, I'm going to blow it up from the inside. So I really do hold true to that. Yes. and as part of that I wanted to ask you about your family so your hot husband that's that's what you call him yes well that's what the world calls him now that yeah that blew up well you're both phenomenally hot and make a very hot couple but I'm so interested in family units that are unconventional partly because I'm also a stepmother as we were chatting about before and I just love you to tell us the story of your family and how you met your husband um we've been together for 22 years which is a really long time and um we met in a pub I was working in a bar in Sydney in Australia and he walked in and I've never ever been confident around boys or men I've just never been like boy crazy but something happened when I met my husband I just saw him and I went yep lock it down like that works for me and I just walked up to him and said you'll be coming home with me tonight and he went did you actually say that i actually i know can you fucking believe it wow i just walked up to him and said it i was 21 yeah like and i had the worst haircut of my fucking life he still makes fun of me for it it was remember when halle berry had that really short yes when she um won the oscar yes that i was like i'm gonna try that with this hair yeah we have very similar hair and you know what he said to me he goes later he said to me oh I thought oh god she must be confident because I have I had that haircut if you know if you're going to pull off that haircut she must be confident it's been what a long-term relationship is when there's children involved stepchildren involved long distance involved um but we we had a conversation very early on in our relationship that he knew that I I'm an actor and I'm a comedian and I'm a performer and this is what I'm working toward he knew that and he was like I would love to like let's make that happen and I'll have the kids I'll do the he's such a nurturer so early on we had that conversation but it's interesting now that you know the success is what it is he gets such an audience of people going god you're so lucky to have him and I'm like absolutely and they're like you know you're so good to her she's so lucky to have you and I absolutely am but they think that he has given up his life for me and I have so many female friends who have successful successful husbands and not once do they get that audience of going wow he's so lucky and Arpie my husband even says that he's like it's weird I'm sitting with all you know our groups of friends and these people say to him god she's so lucky to have you what a man and these women are there going I have to do the same thing over here with my husband but there's no audience for it it's so astonishing how far we've yet to go 100 % especially when it comes to looking at those sort of relationships like people genuinely think like I say that he has given up so much for me and sure he has and I've given up like it's you do what you do but it's not as though he was like well I did plan on you know flying a rocket to space three years ago, but I had to stop that because she wants to be funny.

34:21It wasn't a thing.

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35:09Now on to the daring dab ghost wings. Yep, there it is. I love the spice level. Attempt the Popeyes and Hot Ones menu in stores, our hottest collaboration yet. Love that chicken from Popeyes. Limited time in participating U.S. restaurants. You have two sons now. Yeah, two boys. 13 and? 11. 11. Okay. So first of all, I want to ask you about being a step-parent. So your step-daughters were two and four when they came into your life, is that right? Yes. Yeah. Two and four. What do you think is the most important thing that being a step-parent has taught you? There's so many things. It's interesting.

35:44When you ask that, I instantly think of the girls, Kai and Sarah, bang, when they were little. They're 25 and 23 now. But in my brain, they're little again. And I just think about I was young when I was 21 when I got the girls. And I just think love, just you have to, whatever is going on up here with parents and co-parenting or lack there or whatever, that is all that matters. Now, look, that's great in theory, but that's one thing that I have learned. We just have to make sure that those little sausages are okay. Yeah. I think as a step-parent myself, one of the key realizations I had after many, many years was my job, my stepchildren are older, my job is actually not to parent because they have two really effective co-parents.

36:39my job is to be a support system for the parents in that situation and that really really helped me being a support system to my partner and also it's a completely different situation because they don't live with us and all right and I think that part of my journey was about letting go of the dream of having my own children which didn't happen for me and there was part of me I think that for years wanted to preempt the blendedness of our family unit. And I was just trying too hard to be parental rather than being myself. And sometimes when you decide to show up as yourself, you do end up being parental.

37:20And it's such an interesting conversation because for obvious reasons, we can't talk about it that much because it involves so many other people. So many people and so many different experiences and so many different, you know, perceptions of how it all went down and how it works. But I agree with you actually. I wanted it all to be one big happy family at all times no matter what and it doesn't work like that because, as we just say, we're not the only ones in the situation. There are people that don't want to do that. They, you know, have different ideas for it. I found, yeah, I think we did have very different experiences because I did have the girls a lot.

38:02and I it was hard like I was their next of kin I was all of that so it's like I being their friend and it's the number one rule when you're a step parent everywhere you read everything is like don't parent them just be your friend I was like well they are two and four that is impossible for me yes and yeah I think if I had my time again I think about this a lot it would it would be different I'd make I'd do it differently I think they are so incredibly lucky to have you as you are them but what an amazing stepmother to have just someone who has redefined what it is to be a woman and made it acceptable just to be our authentic imperfect selves and to celebrate that you also have two sons and I'm so intrigued to hear from you whether you perceive many differences in terms of now that your sons are entering teenage years the pressures societally that they face as someone who has done so much for women?