Jared Leto, Ariana Grande, and Naked Steakhouses


0:00Every summer, I rediscover that my body's preferred sleeping temperature is that of an industrial freezer. Anyone else? I was sick of flipping my pillow every five minutes, so I finally switched out my whole sleep situation for Cozy Earth, and I really don't know what I was waiting for. The rib-knit pajama set is incredible. It's best worn after a full day of sweating in muggy New York City to feel instantly refreshed. These PJs are made from viscose and bamboo and are genuinely breathable. Cozy Earth stands by everything they make. There's a lifetime warranty and 30 days of hassle-free returns if something's not right.

0:30Head to CozyEarth.com and use my code SUZY, that's S-U-Z-Y, for an exclusive 20 % off. That's code SUZY for an exclusive 20 % off. And if you see a post-purchase survey, mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Oh, you know what's really good in the shower, by the way? Water. Oh my god. You ever drink a cold one in the shower when you're taking a hot one? On the outside, on the inside. Having a cold one in a hot one after a long one?

0:57Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Second Thought, where we give you our hot takes about popular culture and talk about unpopular culture. Yes, those stories that are under discussed and under reported that we think you should know about. I am Suzy Weiss and I am here with my co-host Dan Adut. Welcome, Dan. Thank you. By the way, I like that you started with welcome back. So presumptuous. Everyone's coming back. Everyone's coming back. Welcome to the channel. Welcome back to our channel. We are so happy to have you here. Especially because today we are going to talk about, there's so many good topics.

1:29Jared Leto. Ariana Grande. Florida's naked steakhouse and a very entertaining employment lawsuit. Yes, absolutely. Which, by the way, I think that one struck home to me because I feel like, well, we'll talk about it. Because you see your employers a lot? No, I feel like I'm going to be that guy at the free press. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay, well, let's tell the listeners what we're talking about here. This is a former Netflix executive. His name is Kevin Bailey, I believe is how you pronounce his last name. And he filed a lawsuit against the streamer claiming wrongful termination. I believe that's how you pronounce Bailey.

2:11It's like a crazy last... It's written crazy. It's written like Braille. Oh, it is. It's B-A-I-L-L-I-E. It could actually be pronounced... It could be any word. It could be ba. Ba. I actually, I need to see a picture to grok the ethnicity to decide how we're going to pronounce that. Let's just go with Bailey. This is America and his last name is Bailey. Okay, great. They were at a corporate retreat, a Netflix corporate retreat, and they were doing some sort of sharing circle, some like vulnerability trust exercise. This is at a ranch Netflix owns. That's like its own interesting piece of it. Kevin Bailey shared that to get over the depression he had after his mom died, He took ketamine.

2:51Yeah. And then Kevin Bailey stood on his head and drank a Guinness. Yes. A pint of Guinness. And then he was fired. Right. I guess at some point. And now he's suing, claiming that you can't encourage that type of thing and have an open bar if you're not willing to like hear what your employees have to say. And I'm wondering if you think he has a legitimate grievance here. well okay there's a couple things first of all he was this is the thing companies are trying to be so cool and like hey we're like you guys come on have fun have a beer and they do that and then people do beer things and then they're like oh no you can't do that right it's all a ruse man don't let your fucking guard down do not let your guard down there was a great wall street journal um piece about this advising which i have long advised do not bring your whole self to work they do not need to know about you they do not need to know your sexuality they don't need to know where you live the funniest part to me about this is that it's like the ketamine discussion into the like circus trick like you know he was there and he was like yeah and it helped me realize that my dad didn't abandon me he abandoned himself okay who wants to see me drink a guinness on my head like it's so bizarre i kind of love this guy i love him too also of note he's suing for 1.1 million dollars he works in visual effects this is a guy who did the visual effects for pirates of the caribbean caribbean this is like the only credit he has he's making him over a million bucks a year at netflix i'm we're in the wrong industry first of all ai's taking that guy's job yesterday so that's why he's trying to plan his exit with this lawsuit but also they said in the article that he mentioned the ketamine thing but then he kept mentioning it at other times that we're not like whatever the vulnerable circle was oh he was just bringing it up he's just like line to like for the tri-tip it's like by the way yeah when i was on ketamine i thought of cutting my cutting my arm off in a steak and eating it right that's the thing it's like unless you were in like the front lines i don't think you should be talking about how ketamine helped you i mean if he was talking about like you know it helped me get over what happened in iraq right but it's like i don't know this feels a little like he's stretching it but also he's in la yeah yeah in They were at this ranch.

5:07People do ketamine in LA like it's, you know, it's like taking a cent from silver. It's like a vitamin. It's like a multivitamin. Oh, a cent from silver. Like a Flintstone daily. Yeah. Like that's what people talk about ketamine all the time. Like, oh, I just, is this my ketamine? I think it's pretty hardcore to take it intravenously. I think it's more hardcore to chug a pint of Guinness on your head. How do you do that? I don't know the physics. That's an amazing trick. Aren't you going to waterboard yourself if you do that? That's like a golden retriever walking on his hind legs. I would love to see that.

5:40He should have gotten a raise for that. He absolutely should have gotten a raise. Someone brought up to me, and it's probably true, that they just wanted an excuse to fire this guy. I don't know. Again, I think he got bamboozled a little bit. And there's no such thing as an offsite. There's no such thing as a retreat. There's no such thing as a team-building exercise. All of these things are— If you are on company property, on a company's dime, eating the company's food, assume you're being recorded. Assume it's all on the record. I hope Kevin Bailey gets every cent because he took the thing seriously.

6:13I also know of a guy who worked for a nonprofit and he was invited to share a bias he has. And he shared that he prefers to have an Indian or Asian doctor. And he got fired. Hilarious. Hilarious. It's like of all the racist things, it's like I kind of get it. You know what I mean? but it was really apparently not taken so well. You need an Indian, you need an Asian. He goes, I feel relief when it's an Indian or an Asian doctor. And it's like, you know what, fair enough. Yeah. You need an Indian, you need an Asian, or you need like a socially awkward Ashkenazi Jew. Yeah. You don't want a cool Sephardic.

6:52Well, that's for sure. It depends on the part of the body. Okay, so let's do ethnicities by focus in medicine. I love this game. I play it every Friday. Optometrist. White woman. White woman? You know, I have a Filipino guy, and I'm very happy with that, actually. Okay, fine. I actually really respect that. Gastrointestinal issues. Oh, GI. I want the spectrum. Vietnamese. Oh, spectrum yashkinas. Oh, okay. Interesting. I was thinking more of that for gynecology. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so anything that's going to be touching near my genitalia, I don't want anyone attractive or sexually anything.

7:36And the problem is every dermatologist. Well, it's all going to be robots. The thing we're describing, our children are going to have no idea what we're talking about. Right. Because there is not going to be such a thing as ethnic preferences for your doctor. Right. They're going to be like, what color robot do you want? Yeah, literally. Examining you. And we're going to be like, Vietnamese, Vietnamese. Okay, Kevin Bailey, Second Thought Podcast, awards you$1. million in lost wages. Congratulations, Kevin Bailey. Monsieur Ballet. Kevin Ballet. Kevin Ballet, good luck with your suit. That brings us to our next topic, Jared Leto.

8:10Jared Leto. First of all, I think he's 80. He just looks amazing. He looks great. Second of all, four women. Let's start with the positive. He looks great. It's a compliment sandwich. He looks great. he's the face of Gucci no one can take that away from him well so four women have recently come out accusing Oscar winning actor Jared Leto of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers there's a new BBC documentary about it it's called Hollywood's Dark Secret about Jared Leto apparently this has been something of an open secret for a long time some things are new here others are not I'm more curious about whether you think anything is gonna happen in terms of backlash to Jared Leto does this kind of feel like the sputtering out of the Me Too movement.

8:56What's your, did you know this about Jared Leto? I didn't know it, but it's not surprising to me. But also. He is so terrifying. Yeah. Look, I think that there's good Me Too and there's bad Me Too. I think the bad Me Too has puttered out, but the good Me Too is still there. Like you can't just be a scumbag and think you're going to get away with it. And I think that's cool. That's good. Like I think it was important for the movement to happen. I think this is the pendulum kind of, you know. Evening out. It's like, oh, that is odd to be texting teenagers. I do think it happened like 25 and 15 years ago.

9:30Jared Leto is famously sober. So I think all of these things were happening when he was imbibing. Not that that excuses it, but it kind of adds a layer here. Another layer that I find really interesting is that Jared Leto is raising$75 million to have a venture fund. And I think the message I'm taking away from this is capital is too cheap. Interest rates must go up. There is no reason Jared Leto needs a venture fund. Why would Jared Leto need a venture fund? Apparently he's like a poor man's... Ashton Kutcher? Yeah. I know, I was reading that. He is invested in Reddit and all of these things.

10:04Robin Hood. He's done all the right moves, except with the 17-year-old. What's your favorite Jared Leto role? God, I thought you were going to say, what's your favorite move on a 17-year-old? Dallas Buyers Club. Oh, so good in Dallas. Buyers Club. He really loves playing a freak. We are compliment sandwiching Jared Leto. Well, you can't deny. I mean, you can't deny Requiem for a Dream. What's the one he was in? Claire Danes, that sitcom in the 90s. He was a joker. Oh, was he? Yes. Opposite Margot Robbie. Hey, no one's taken away from his acting jobs. Look, acting is a weird job. And to be good at it, you have to be a fucking weirdo.

10:42Is that true? I think so. Look, they're shapeshifters. Yeah, they're shapeshifters. that's why it's weird to me when actors like give their like political takes on stuff i'm like dude you're you're such a weird person that you're good at this party trick right like that doesn't mean that you're good at everything exactly you're really good at a very strange thing and it actually it kind of precludes you from being good at other stuff yeah yeah like because you can just like you can shape shift you can kind of your empathy is so radical where you can actually feel like what you know you're like you're like a medium that someone is speaking through you i don't know it's a especially jared leto's very like alien like i find and kind of androgynous remember when he took his own head to the met gala yeah he's in a rock band 30 seconds to mars let's not forget that i i just i'm not surprised by any of this i'm not but also it's like i think how do you feel about this i feel like uh they didn't show any of the women they were all like anonymous yeah i don't know if it was a hit it might have been a hit piece from ashton kutcher right so so he could get it on those sweet sweet rounds of airbnb investment yeah i think me too is is sort of it's maybe this is the me too swan song it sort of started and ended with jared leto remember when jared leto didn't know it was covid because he was doing like a sound bath in the forest for months and then he came out and someone had to be like jared leto there's this like global pandemic.

12:09And he was like, I had no idea. He's so, he's never going to die. It doesn't seem like any brand sponsorships are dropping him. I don't know like the status of that. It doesn't seem like his 30 seconds to Mars tour is going to be canceled anytime soon. It just seems like things are going to continue chugging along. I mean, this is fresh. This is fresh though. We don't know yet. We don't know yet. It could still all come tumbling down for him like it did in Requiem for a Dream. Okay, that's it for Jared Leto. and we will be right back after a word from our fabulous sponsors. Every summer, I rediscover that my body's preferred sleeping temperature is that of an industrial freezer.

12:44Anyone else? I was sick of flipping my pillow every five minutes, so I finally switched out my whole sleep situation for Cozy Earth, and I really don't know what I was waiting for. The rib-knit pajama set is incredible. It's best worn after a full day of sweating in muggy New York City to feel instantly refreshed. These PJs are made from viscose and bamboo and are genuinely breathable. Cozy Earth stands by everything they make. There's a lifetime warranty and 30 days of hassle-free returns if something's not right. Head to CozyEarth.com and use my code SUZY, that's S-U-Z-Y, for an exclusive 20 % off.

13:15That's code SUZY for an exclusive 20 % off. And if you see a post-purchase survey, mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. We're back. We're back, and I want to talk about something that has been fascinating me. and you wrote an article about it, but you know, I'm on Facebook Marketplace every day, all day now. All day, every second. And suddenly the algorithm started popping food up at me. And there's people selling food out of their apartment on Facebook Marketplace all over the country. Prepared meals. Prepared meals. And you just roll up to their house and they walk out the door and they hand you the meal and you eat in your car.

13:55I don't think you have to eat in your car to be fair, but... You don't have to. What kind of foods were you seeing? Oh, barbecue. Barbecue is a big one. A lot of ethnic foods. I just checked right before we started airing. There's a place, there's a dude selling Pakistani food that looks delicious for$10 a plate. And I'm going to get this and we're going to try it next time on air. Yeah. I just had a serious brush with food poisoning after I had a$2 onigiri that was not refrigerated at my local Japanese mini mart. So I think I'm going to pass on that. But I would love to watch you do that. I mean, we're not going to get oysters from someone's house.

14:36Well, all of these Japanese places, it's half off after 8 p.m. So it's all these people walking around the block at that 8 p.m. You go and get the sushi. It is. I paid my dues. This is a shame on you situation. To the Japanese convenience store in Park Slope. You don't get discount raw fish. Yeah. No, I know that now. I absolutely know that now. But you're running a very similar risk with food that you buy on Facebook Marketplace. I did this big story on cottage foods, which is basically cottage foods are not perishable. So it's breads, cookies, things that don't need refrigeration. And people have been selling them out of their house forever.

15:12However, you kind of get into weird territory when you get into produce, milk, meat, and prepared foods. People of different microbiomes, as we know, something that could be healthy for your family for generations, might not work in other people's families or with their own sort of bodies. And then you kind of have this problem of zoning where people aren't zoned to be a restaurant and they're pouring grease down their sink. All of a sudden you have a grease fire. You have people lining up in an apartment building, which isn't really fair to their neighbors. It kind of like brings up a lot of live questions when you sell food off Facebook Marketplace.

15:51I think it's very illegal. No, it's not illegal. It's not illegal? It's a legal gray area depending on the food that you're selling. I'm sure a landlord can say you can't turn this into a Facebook Marketplace kitchen. That is true. Because think about the wear and tear on everything. On the kitchen, exactly. And then there's like caps with how much you could sell. and then of course there's no standards so it's like if you have a dog in there and then the dog hair food gets in it there's hair nets there's toddlers if you really think about it could get like absolutely crazy it's look there's a little bit of a russian roulette aspect to it but it's kind of fun yeah you know you're you're getting a home-cooked meal literally yeah and um you know some of these people are also like great cooks who are stay-at-home moms they can't run a restaurant Big thing for stay-at-home moms.

16:38They have a skill set that they want to make some extra cash at. I'm going to keep doing it until I get food poisoning. I love that plan. What would you sell out of your Facebook Marketplace home kitchen? I would make ramen. Just give you a bowl in your car. That doesn't travel well, though. That doesn't travel well at all. I would avoid things that have to be fried. I mean, there's all these videos, too, of people doing home cafes or home diners where it's like you go to their apartment and order a latte or cookies or whatever it is and eat it in their apartment. I'm very into similar with the Kevin Bailey story.

17:14Let's have some separation. Agreed. Don't talk about your therapy at work. Don't make your apartment a restaurant. There's certain, there's lines for a reason. We're becoming boundary-less. There's a little bit of a kink going on with that too because it's like you can go to a restaurant and get the same thing. Sure. And you can go and get it faster. You can get it a little more efficiently and with less risk, but there's like a kink. Like, I want to go. Well, it's like, oh my God, this hole in the wall place. I mean, there's a little bit of Anthony Bourdainification of all of these things. It is a little bit of like, oh, oh, you're still going to restaurants?

17:47Right. That's so weird. Yeah, there's this girl, Gabrielle. Yeah. In apartment five. Yeah, on the 15th floor and you have to go there and knock on her door. Sometimes she's there. Yeah. She's not wearing shoes in her kitchen. It's like, well, at a certain point. Yeah. Perhaps you should care about the safety standards of the things you're eating. Yeah. It's like a doula for your mouth is what's going on. I completely agree. There's also an element, I think at least with cottage foods, where people are like, oh, it's outside of the food system. It's something that's more local. It must be more healthy for you because it isn't part of the industrial farming complex.

18:23These people are getting their ingredients the same place any restaurant is getting it. It's like just because a cookie is made in someone's house versus a bakery doesn't make it more healthful. Yeah. It's still, you know, white sugar or whatever it is. You know what I'd love to get from people in their apartments? A cheese. Okay. You know about bathtub cheese? Like a raw? No. Oh my God. Bathtub cheese is a huge problem. A lot of people got sick from bathtub cheese. It's like Mexican cheese that people make in their bathtubs and sell it because it uses raw milk and like the cultures are different and there's something illegal about it.

18:53You can get really, really sick from bathroom cheese. Okay. Bathtub cheese. You have to stop saying bathtub cheese. that's the last time i ever want to hear so weird yeah it's a big thing and it's going to become a bigger thing especially as everyone's going to slowly become a gig economy worker i think in the ai age you're just going to have people monetizing whatever they can and we're all going to be driving uber and making bathtub cheese for our neighbors and it's going to be like a hunter gatherer um sustenance lifestyle i guess you know another thing that would be interesting to buy from people is wild game.

19:27Wild game cannot be sold legally in America. You can't buy it from a butcher or anything like that. So the only way like meat that someone hunts. Yeah. The only way you can get wild game is if you hunt it yourself or someone who's a hunter gives it to you, but you can't just go out and buy it. Weird. Yeah. It's a it's a very American law. Europe doesn't do it like that. You can buy wild game in Europe from a supermarket that hunters will will get and They'll sell it to the supermarket. Supermarket sells it. We don't do that here. And I think some people should have access to a quail if they want.

20:00A hunted quail with like a bullet in it like hanging out. I actually kind of don't think so. There's also a big thing with raw milk. You can buy raw milk as long as you buy it for a pet, like as pet food. That's like the law in a lot of states. There's all these weird loopholes around food. You know who hates cottage foods and hates stuff like this? Bakeries. because these people are not subject to inspections, licensing fees. And the bakeries who want to stay open on Main Street or whatever it is have to get all, you know, special temperature refrigerators and surprise inspections from the health department.

20:35So it can really cause like, well, they're doing it for free. Why am I even opening the storefront? There was a big issue with food trucks when they started popping up everywhere. And restaurants were like, dude, these guys are just like parking outside of our place. They don't have any rent to pay. They're just like, you know. Much less overhead. Much less overhead. This is like a van life thing. Yeah. Where they're trying to sell you something that they think is off the beaten path and convenient, but it actually represents like an impoverishment of your life. That you're having to go on Facebook to buy a home cooked meal.

21:06You should be able to cook a meal yourself at home. That's the thing. I feel like this is all part. It all ties into like in New York City, there's a craze about a restaurant charging$40 for a chicken. The$40 chicken craze. Oh, yeah,$40 chicken. I think it's all part of this thing of people don't know how to fucking cook anymore. Right. And so because of that, they are willing to jump through these crazy hoops to get a home cooked meal. It's a home cooked meal. It's supposed to be cooked in your own home. That's true. Go cook. Learn how to cook the meal. I'm a firm believer that some things you shouldn't get out, like you shouldn't get at a restaurant because you can just get it yourself.

21:38Roast chicken. You should know how to roast a chicken. What's your, do you do Anas? What's your roast chicken recipe? Jeffrey's coming home a little late tonight. Jeffrey. I'm going to make his favorite roast chicken. You're going to love it. I do this. That's your Ina. That's my Ina. How easy is that? How easy is that? Oh, Ina, this is so great. Thank you so much. Meanwhile, Jeffrey runs the CIA. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Talk about your roast chicken recipe and then we'll move on. Okay. I like the Zuni Cafe roast chicken recipe. It's a dry brine. So you salt it. You put it in the fridge for two to three days.

22:10Oh, I love that. And then you take it out, cast iron skillet, throw that baby in a piping hot oven, turn it halfway through, you have the best roast chicken ever. Da-da-da-dang, da-dang, dang, dang, dang, dang. Look at that news you can use. Second Thought is also a recipe podcast. And we will be right back to discuss Ariana Grande. And now a quick word from our sponsor. At the Free Press, we're pretty obsessed with one big idea, that most topics deserve more honesty and more depth than they're getting. So I want to tell you about a podcast that's doing exactly that. It's called Unpacking Israeli History.

22:44If you follow the news about Israel, you're getting headlines. But headlines are just a tiny slice of a long, complicated, and fascinating story without the depth or the context that you deserve. On Unpacking Israeli History, Dr. Noam Weissman dives deep into the events, the people, and the moments that shaped Israel with genuine empathy and a willingness to explore multiple perspectives. And when he brings in guests like the philosopher Mika Goodman or the journalist Haviv Reddick-Gur, they only add to that depth. It's deeply researched storytelling for people who want to understand Israel rather than confirm what they already think.

23:16And in today's climate, that's rare. Find Unpacking Israeli History on your favorite podcast app or YouTube and subscribe today. Let's talk about Ariana Grande. OK. This is a minefield, y 'all. Ariana Grande announced that she is taking a step back from visibility, which I think is a very interesting way to put it. When her Eternal Sunshine tour comes to a close in September, she's about to fly to LA and do 10 days of her tour there, she will no longer be appearing in a West End production of Sunday in the Park with George. The announcement comes after intense public scrutiny over her weight and how thin she looks, which was on display in her latest music video for her new song, Petal.

23:59I feel so bad. Yeah. I feel so bad for her. She's been through it. People forget she was dating Mac Miller. And then there was a terrorist attack at one of her concerts. Oh, yeah. So a lot of her fans died. Yeah. She was like in the building. She's had to like weather a lot of brutal stuff in the public eye. And now, you know, there was sort of a lot of chattering about her and Cynthia Erivo when they were doing the Wicked tour. And they were kind of both becoming just like eyeballs with hands, like grasping each other by the end. and now she's very, very thin. She has sort of reinvented herself much like Taylor Swift a few times.

24:39She's kind of had a few different personas. She was married and divorced to Dalton Gomez. She was engaged to Pete Davidson. There's a lot gone on with Miss Grande here and now she's taking a step back which I actually, it's like, yeah, you don't have to be scheduled within an inch of your life for years. I feel like every celebrity should take a step back. I think that every celebrity is just too much out there, too much out there for everyone's scrutiny and whatnot. And I think that there should be more walls put up for everyone, not just for Ariana Grande. I think she always seems to be working really hard on really great projects and bringing it and delivering and seems like a positive person and a nice person.

25:24You don't hear that she's like an evil person when the cameras are off. No, I think she's really sweet. Her comeback, not that we should speculate, but when she decides to do her Broadway debut and really bring it, it is going to be so triumphant. Yeah. And so incredible because she is extremely resilient. And I only wish her the best. And yeah, anorexia is really bad. Do you think she's anorexic? Yeah. Oh, that's a bummer. I really do. You know, it's always weird for me when I'm at the gym. And there's someone. And there's always like an anorexic person who lives there. And I almost want to go report it to the gym and say, like, this doesn't seem right.

26:01Well, what are they going to do? I don't know. Turn the machine off. Anorexia is the number, the most deadly psychiatric illness. So it's more deadly than depression. Yes. I think we needed a little bit of an asterisk. Why? In first world countries. No, but it's the most deadly psychiatric illness. So it's not the most deadly illness. Amongst white people, yes. No, no, I think it's across the board. For white people, for sure. No, no, it's not just white people. It's not just white girls. It's mostly white girls. Anorexia is the number one cause of death for white women in this country. A hundred percent.