Trump, TikTok & NDAs

0:02Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde and me Richard Good Osmond. Good morning slash afternoon slash evening, Marina. Hello. How are you, Richard? Yes, I'm all right. How has your half week been since I last saw you? It's been agonisingly too long. I have longed to get back into this coliseum of chat. I can't believe that. Please, just edit that out. No, but to be fair, it is a coliseum of chat. A chattoseum. If you're not watching on YouTube, we are in a coliseum. If you are watching on YouTube, shh. I want there to be an inserted background. Now, what are we going to talk about today?

0:34We are going to talk about a number of things. We're going to talk about Neil Gaiman and the allegations against him and the rise of NDAs and how difficult they seem to make everything. We're going to talk about the shortest-lived corporate ban in history, the TikTok ban, and why Trump maybe doesn't want it banned, the reasons that people are given all sorts of reasons. I think there's one very specific reason why he's brought it back. Trump has appointed three Hollywood special envoys, special envoys to Hollywood on his behalf. What does it mean? Does it mean anything? We're going to talk about that.

1:08And they're as fun as you'd imagine. I know we've said the word Trump there, but I promise you we're talking about entertainment stuff. Don't worry about that. You do not need to switch off. Right. Well, let's begin with Neil Gaiman, partly a fantasy author, who was the subject of a podcast by Tortoise last summer called Master, in which various women came forward and alleged abuse, coercion and sexual misconduct by him. The follow-up, as it were, has taken quite a long time to come out and it came out in New York magazine last week under the headline There is no safe word. And that featured eight women, six of whom went on the record.

1:43And I should say that Neil Gaiman denies most of the claims. He says he's never abused or coerced anybody. He also said he'd been quiet up until this point for all the previous months out of respect for people sharing their stories, which seemed some of the people had shared their stories with police forces. I mean, I'm not going to discuss the allegations. Some of them are just too horrible, but you can certainly read about them. And in fact, I wrote a column including one person's story, Scarlett Pavlovich, who's one of the women making allegations. I think this story particularly hits hard for many people because of the particular nature of his fandom.

2:19Yes, his fandom absolutely love him. And he's had a hugely long career, sold a huge amount of books all around the world. Sandman, American Gods. He did the Good Omens books with Terry Pratchett. This is a guy who has made tens and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions from writing. He's like a megastar of the fantasy literature world and has a fervent fandom for sure. Yeah. One of the things that struck me, apart from all the horrific allegations in the New York Magazine article, was there was a former friend who was a fantasy author as well, who talked a lot about being at those conventions and meeting fans in general he said or she because gave an anonymous quotes um that the fantasy community is an inherently vulnerable community and i do think that there's a particular um sort of type of perhaps vulnerable young person that that kind of work particularly touches it also makes people very vulnerable to abuse and in this case alleged abuse all of the people who seem to have worked for um worked i say providing child care mostly unpaid as far as i can work out um for neil gaiman and his wife amanda palmer seemed to be fans and there was no distinction really between fans and friends and clearly people who provide services right so they've been drawn from that world yeah coming into the house which i think is very difficult but one of the things that i think is interesting about the story is at least two of the women say they were made to sign an NDA, which is a non-disclosure agreement.

3:49Now, NDA is something we hadn't really heard of probably 25 years ago. And now there's barely a story that comes out, whether it's a corporate story, whether it's a personal story, a showbiz story, where someone hasn't had to sign an NDA or someone isn't breaking an NDA. They are a tool that can be used for completely legitimate reasons in business transactions and personal transactions, but also something that could be abused as well. but they're rife. It's really interesting. They originally came about for trade secrets. The Coca-Cola recipe was one of the first NDA things. And it's very interesting that the tech industry, those early big hitters in what became obviously a huge gold rush, there was a huge amount of openness and open source type stuff.

4:33And it was seen as part of its rapid growth. That idea of hoarding secrets was sort of anathema to the people who, by the way, now make all their employees sign NDA. but was sort of anathema because they said, you know, if you have a great idea, tell everyone. There was that whole kind of culture. But that is gone. And in fact, all of those companies who in so many cases took our privacy away in general, you know, by saying it's not a valuable thing or, you know, you share all your life and really downgraded privacy as some kind of aspirational ideal in our culture. The companies that are now saying, listen, we own your copyright.

5:06We can copy your books unless you tell us specifically you don't want us to. Yeah. Every single person who works for one of those companies signs these absolutely exhaustive. And you read these stories about people who on a company retreat were sexually assaulted and their NDA covers even that. And that is an extreme example. But you can read these cases. I mean, one of the other things I think is interesting. I told you I was going to say this because DocuSign, as an example, DocuSign was this company that made it so easy for everyone to be signing legal documents all the time. It's one where you get sent a legal document through an email, you open it up and you sign your name with your finger and it's legally binding.

5:47Everyone, even customers, are now required to sign NDAs. It's made it so easy for people to sign documentation. You can sign it on a screen, you sign it as an iPad. I've read stories about people who have plastic surgery and they have to sign an NDA saying they won't give a bad review. Wow, that doesn't feel legally... I'm no lawyer, but that doesn't feel legally enforceable. In entertainment, there have always been lawyers, as we know, and they mainly have dealt with contracting. But they are now being co-opted into this huge secrecy apparatus. So actors and agents are saying that NDAs are completely overused.

6:23When I had to see episode one of the Philip Schofield Castaway documentary slightly before anyone else, when I'm only doing this podcast on a Monday, I've got to sign an NDA even to be able to see that. Documentaries, I'm often asked, like, people write to me, we're making a documentary, we'd love to tell you what it's about because you'd like your contribution. You need to sign an NDA before someone rings you up. And you think, OK, well, I just see what you're doing the documentary about. You sign this NDA and then they ring you up, ask you all sorts of advice. You think, so where's the NDA for what I'm telling you?

6:55Why am I giving you free advice? By the way, any people listening thinking they want me to contribute to a documentary, if you made me sign an NDA before, I'm not going to do it. Also, I'm probably not going to do it anyway. But please, no more of these annoying requests. I'm not going to sign your NDA so you can tell me what your documentary is about. This is complete overreach. These are not state secrets. Also, the documentary is like Britain's greatest coastal walks. They go, oh, that's fine. And whenever people would send ideas into production companies a lot, and you were never, ever allowed to open them.

7:24You just couldn't do it. But sometimes you get them through, and people would send you an email saying, we have the best new idea ever. If you sign an NDA, we'll send it to you. You think, no, but of course not. I'm with the early tech companies. Transparency is everything. If you've got a great idea, and you're great, just honestly share it out straight away. People know it's yours. Put your flag in immediately. Just let people know. so as soon as I saw an NDA I knew I was dealing with people who were just thinking that this is even if it's a great idea it is not going to be fun Yeah, I now regard it as really Mickey Mouse if you're making me do it Having said that I wonder whether Ingrid has a different experience because for actors it's very very and agents are really up in arms about this a lot of actors and the Actors Union Equity are up in arms because people don't know what they're auditioning for I mean actually when Zendaya was auditioning for Spider-Man Homecoming she was told that it was for Girl in Movie that's how much she gets there you've got to sign the NDA then you get screwed you're like oh I see I'm going to be I'm auditing for Spider-Man but you don't know your agent therefore that's fine you're Zendaya probably nothing terrible is going to happen to you but further down the food chain your agent is supposed to be there to help you and to advise you if this is a part you should even be reading for but you're cutting agents out and in many cases they're supposed to you get the NDA over email you sign it via DocuSign or whatever it is and then you're supposed to self-tape within a couple of hours and send it back.

8:45Now, that process is totally open to abuse, in my view. I mean, someone like Taylor Swift has complained about NDAs, but she has issued them. It's become something that everyone talks about. There was a wrestler in America who... Are you allowed to say this? Yeah. There's a wrestler in America who did something backstage, maybe they had some fight backstage, covered it up with an NDA. That got out somewhere, and the whole crowd was chanting, NDA, NDA came out. You know, Billy Eilish has got a line in a song about them. We all know what they mean. But when that sort of language bleeds into normal life, it's extraordinary.

9:22They think that a third or a half, some different surveys say a third or half of Americans have been asked to sign one at some point. And so when we go back to Neil Gaiman, some of the people who they were employing are asked to sign NDAs as employees. Well, they weren't actually. OK, interesting. They weren't. They were required. And this is what's different. Not being paid for childcare thing is irrationally annoying to me. These people are incredibly rich. Just pay your nanny. I mean, honestly, what is wrong with you? But that's obviously not the thing that's allegedly most wrong with them.

9:52But pay your nanny. What happened was in the case of the two that we know about, one alleges that retrospectively she was made to sign an NDA and she was paid$9 ,200 in installments. Another person was made to sign an NDA and was paid$300 ,000. now one of the things that lawyers will tell you about NDAs is that they mean more if money is attached to them there are parties in Hollywood in the entertainment industries where you are required to sign one before you go in everyone is under one, the assistants, the gardeners, anyone who works anywhere there are certain actors they say every time they go on a date the date is required to sign an NDA before the date begins and that is not weird, there's a lot more it is weird, I know what you mean It is weird.

10:37Before they sleep with them, they sign an NDA. But it's foreplay. Yeah. And it's not like I've heard this is true. This is what, this happens because people are so, people have become corporations. And so they are behaving like corporations used to with trade secrets. So the fact I've gone on a date with you is a trade secret. And also civilians who have been through a divorce are made to sign one at the end. And it's rather difficult if you can't talk about any of your life because you're legally not supposed to. And certainly within the entertainment industry, what many people like who work for someone like Harvey Weinstein, who used them absolutely repeatedly, said, you've then got this massive hole in your CV that you have to say, I'm not allowed to talk about.

11:16What doesn't look great in your next job interview if you say, I can't talk about it. Why can't you talk about it? Because you can't say I've signed an NDA. You're not supposed to even allude to the existence of the document. Although I will say this, if you do have a hole in your CV, if you're applying for jobs next week, then just when they say, what's this two year hole, just go, I'm afraid I can't talk about it. I've signed an NDA. Well, that's a meme. And then they'll think you've done something amazing. People say, do that now. Oh, really? People say, I'm just going to say I did an NDA so that people think I, you know, worked in black ops, you know, for Angelina Jolie or something.

11:45But OJ Simpson made his family members sign one before they visited him on his deathbed. Did he? Yeah, obviously, we know Trump made Stormy Daniels sign one, which is what led to the whole hush money trial. But in terms of helping to break them now, a woman I mentioned in the Neil Gaiman story, Scarlett Pavlovich, who was very young when she went to work for Neil Gaiman. She was 24 and he was 61. She was a vulnerable and troubled person who was sort of estranged from her family and all sorts of other things. And she became locked in quite a sort of toxic cycle, whichever way you look at it, with the people to whom she was supposed to be providing childcare.

12:22What happened was that as she became to regard it as alleged abuse, she was put in touch with one of Harvey Weinstein's assistants, Zelda Perkins, who herself had been subject to an NDA. She hadn't been abused by Weinstein, but she'd heard of another assistant who had, and they'd both resigned together 25 years ago, and then they'd immediately been placed under NDA, so they could never talk about it, and she said it was just this awful thing. So she is part of a sort of network, and there are formal and informal networks of people advising people how to break NDAs and what to do. And the general view is tell your stories, because there are so many people, And by the way, as I say, this document has proliferated across 21st century life.

13:07We're not just talking about celebrities, although we are particularly in this podcast, but many, many people will have been asked to sign one. And then we'll feel that, well, hang on. If I say what happened to me, then maybe they're going to take my severance away from me, which is what a lot of people do feel. It's contingent. You get your severance. But if you say anything about it, it'll come and take it away. And people have discovered that actually if they do say what happened to them, there was a woman who worked at Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' company, although she wasn't talking about him.

13:31She wrote a long essay about what happened to her there. And they didn't come and take the severance because what's going to happen then? The next thing you're going to say is, oh, they've come and taken my severance now. And so sunlight is in some ways the best medicine. I'm not advising you to break an NDA. You need to talk to experts if you do this. But many, many people have realized that actually saying things and breaking them, they are harder to enforce in some ways once if your story is something that may be regarded as kind of publicity worthy. Yeah. This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer.

14:03One of the things I do think is interesting. You look like you think you're a lawyer. You've got a certain bearing about you that goes, listen, I'm not saying don't break them. Don't take legal advice from me. If you do have one, I'm just saying, come on. Well, the trouble is, is that it is part of the legalization of the world. If you think about it, there are many, many more lawyers than there are doctors in the US. Is that right? Yeah. So many of our politicians were lawyers beforehand. I do think about this a lot. There was a very interesting column that Juliet Samuel wrote one in the Times.

14:33She wrote about kind of the legalization, international law and the Chagos Islands and all those sort of things. But it is a general sort of idea that the law is everything. And of course, what we always talk about, the rule of law and it matters and et cetera, et cetera. Having said that, there is a huge class of secrecy lawyers that have sprung up. They launder oligarchs reputations. They shut down all sorts of things. They issue lawsuits all the time. And they have built a much bigger culture of secrecy in a society that in many other ways has divested itself of the idea of privacy. And so privacy can be something that you can pay for if you are rich and famous.

15:06Well, that's interesting, is it? Because we live in a world where every bit of information is available to everyone at all times. And everyone has written about constantly that people are bunkering down and hunkering down. And suddenly there's that whole new industry of uber privacy. Yeah. And there are people like storytellers like Neil Gaiman, who's very much supposedly an ally and wanted everyone to share their stories. And now you actually realize that because they have the money, they can avail themselves of the secrecy apparatus and they can keep everything quiet. I mean, I do slightly sometimes think as well, I was talking to a very, very successful barrister, a KC, recently about saying, are you not vulnerable to AI?

15:44Do you not talk about it all the time? Because, first of all, the general public think about the law, I can't afford lawyers. And yet the legal system is unnavigable without lawyers. And something someone like a very expensive KC might cost you£800 an hour. but they're just drawing on, you know, I mean I know there's a flourish and there's a bravado and there's a this and a that but they're drawing on precedent and all sorts of things that surely the machines Yeah, they're not writing every single NDA afresh with a quill No, and surely eventually, even further than legalisation of the world, the machines will become in charge of lots of these things and maybe there'll be a judge that rules at the end And then the case that he gave you an answer said, however, you're not allowed to tell anyone about that, please sign here But I was asking about this person and they said, no, we don't really talk about that.

16:31I said, well, I think you should because I think you're very expensive. And I think that ultimately court cases and all of these things will be so expensive. But that's even further sort of legalization in the world because it can all supposedly be presided over by the machines. But I do think that if you're rich and if you're famous, you spend a huge amount of money on many of these lawyers that treat you like a corporation, treat your every human interaction like a corporation. try and ring fence it and give you the privacy and privacy for some of these people they don't want privacy if you want to be able to tell your story if you want if you want to be able to say this is what happened to me some of these are so completely draconian many maybe most people listening to this podcast will at some point have been required to sign an nda and they might not even realize that their contract contains one well by the very listening to this you have officially signed an NDA, you're not allowed to tell anybody what we've said.

17:26By the way, we should genuinely say that NDAs often have an absolutely legitimate purpose and in business occasions you do need to use them and there are definitely times you need to use an NDA. It's just the fact that they have become so weaponised and now they're used for things that they shouldn't be. They're used to hush people and to buy silence. But also creatively people are saying that the streamers started it because the streamers had huge amounts of money which was debt at the time but is now tipping into profit and they sign every creative project came with NDAs which you weren't people weren't used to with their old broadcast contacts they didn't have to sign an NDA at every possible opportunity and it began with I don't know Netflix and Amazon and all those people and now it is it's completely proliferated and everybody is signing them yeah if you ever do something you could do like celebrity escape to the country and they say you mustn't tell anyone you're doing this until the 16th of February and often in situations like that I'll always just say it Because you think, and I've yet to be sued.

18:24I've yet to be taken to court. I'd love to see that court case. Osman versus Celebrity Escape to the Country. Yeah, you have said in a pub that you will be doing... On the 3rd of February. I haven't done Celebrity Escape to the Country, by the way. Although I loved it over Christmas. You would be able to talk about it if you had to. Well, listen, I would because I'm a maverick. But in the case we're talking... You want to share your story? Yeah, exactly. I want to share my story. I want to share my truth. But in the case of this Neil Gaiman story, as you say, Tortoise covered it last year. New York Magazine have covered it this year.

18:56He has finally made a comment on it. It feels like that is not going to go away anytime soon. And the one thing about people telling their story is it feels like it then becomes easier for other people to break NDAs. Because it feels like the story gets bigger than the NDA itself. And what are you going to do? Go to court and make it an even bigger story. So it feels like maybe there'll be more information coming to light which will show the truth or otherwise of what's going on and we'll all get a clearer picture. But it's a story that's not going to go away this year, I don't think. No, but that was the part of the problem with Harvey Weinstein.

19:31When he was exposed, it was a sort of huge thing. But people realized just how powerful NDAs were because you thought, my God, this man has been doing this for 25 odd years or whatever it was. and nobody has said anything. And the trail of NDAs behind him, people thought, huh, well, I guess, you know, don't be silly. Of course, I've never done anything like that, but I very much like you, my gardener, you, my this. Everyone then, it was a great advert for the document, for the legal document of our times. I think the thing to do would be anytime you do action an NDA, you just get a little score mark next to your name.

20:06So we have no idea what your NDAs are. But if a particular individual suddenly has 75 NDAs, you might kind of think, well, that's unusual because he's just an actor. You should have to declare how many NDAs you've got. Don't you think? That's easy. If you can justify it. Yes. I would like, I'd love to see it. Yes. It could be in Who's Who next to your name. How many NDAs? Yeah. Shall we have a little advert break? Let's have a break.

20:36Hello, everybody. Welcome back. We're going to talk about the TikTok ban in a moment and the reason that Trump is bringing it back. and there is a reason. But first, he's done something else. I have to say, quite funny this week with the envoys that he is sending to Hollywood. I mean, he is quite funny, that's the trouble. On Thursday, surprising even those who were named in the announcement, Donald Trump announced he was creating three special Hollywood envoys. Envoys to a great but troubled place, I think he called it. Yes, once great, currently troubled. They are Sylvester Stallone. Heard of him.

21:06Mel Gibson. And him. And Jon Voight. Heard of all of them. Immediate thoughts. imagine how gutted Chuck Norris is. Devastating. Devode and Seagal. But also, yeah, I know. Well, that is tricky. I mean, I think he is an envoy, but just for another superpower. Of course, he's Putin. I think he actually genuinely is an envoy. Why didn't he call them the three musketeers? It was right there. I want to call them the three. Chuck Norris could be the d 'Artagnan in that case. He could latterly draft Chuck. Oh, d 'Artagnan, like a fourth musketeer. Yeah, like 84 years old, but still. And he could draft them in into this kind of...

21:39is in his 90s, isn't he? He's old, Rich. I mean, look, these are Trump's first DEI hires, aren't they? Yeah. They are. The thing is that I suppose that rich, very rich, old white men just can't catch a break. Yes. And they would be great, by the way, if they were just given a chance. And so somebody's got to break down that glass ceiling. Won't somebody give Mel Gibson a chance? Yeah. Give him a shot. Let him have a shot. You give him the bullets, he will fire them. So Trump is saying Hollywood is in trouble. It's lost a lot of its business to foreign countries and these three guys are going to sort it out.

22:12He says they're going to be my eyes and ears in Hollywood. Jon Voight is going to be his eyes and ears in Hollywood. They're going to report back to me and we're going to get Hollywood back where it belongs. You're going to be my cataracts in Hollywood. No offence. My cataracts are coming in myself so I feel like I can say that because it's my truth to it. Now you're allowed to say it. I can neither confirm or deny that I have cataracts. I'm afraid I've signed a document with my optician. Yeah. Which my eye health is my own. What is their role supposedly? We're back now in the world of saying, yes but what did Trump mean by this?

22:39But we are now officially backing on that so you might as well make a piece with it. But what is their role supposedly? Here's the interesting thing. What does he mean by it? Nothing. It's a joke. He's trying to rile all of Hollywood and I think it's got to the point with Trump where people go oh it's a gag. That's absolutely fine. Mel Gibson found out from the tweet. Sorry the Truth Social post. The Truth Social post. He said yes this is news to me and his house had burned down last week. He said look I'm happy to do it. Does it come with a house? is what an ambassador's resident yeah an ambassador's resident the idea is that that they are you know doing Trump's work in Hollywood presumably and having meetings with people I'm assuming they're not going to be meeting SAG-AFTRA and talking to all the streamers and you know talking about Chinese distribution of Hollywood movies I assume they're just going to be doing Can we talk about the personnel though can we before we talk about what they might do I would like to talk about the personnel so we have three amazing choices we have Stallone who has a production company in fact hilariously I've just I discovered that the forthcoming movie that he's co-written with that production company is literally called Working Man.

23:42Oh, clever. Statham stars as a construction worker. Someone, maybe he was in Special Forces, but he's gone back into the construction chain just to be a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. And I think he gets sort of pulled back in in a slightly taken style thing where he's got to go and track down his boss's kidnapped daughter or something like that. But it's genuinely literally called Working Man. Oh, and by the way, I'm genuinely going to watch it. Oh, yeah, so am I. I watched Tulsa King, which is obviously the big show. Now, that's a Taylor Sheridan show. So that's on Paramount and Stallone's the lead in that.

24:11And that's just been renewed for series three and four. It's very, very successful. It's not terrible. So we've got Mel Gibson next, who after his outburst to the Jewish traffic cop and what I'll have to refer to as the sugar-titted traffic cop, had a period in the wilderness. Yes, which didn't last that long. No. 2016 he was back already on the best director Oscar list for that movie Hacksaw Ridge he's directing a lot he's got a movie with Mark Wahlberg coming out I know which is called Flight Risk and the strapline for it is y 'all need a pilot is it literally? yeah again count me in again that's someone taking someone in who's about to testify against a mob boss taking them on a plane and shenanigans ensue fights on a plane big ensuing movie that one yeah yeah yeah in the ensue genre so Jon Voight I mean the most fun of the three in a lot of ways Angelina Jodie's dad yeah he was in Megalopolis is it yeah but he's obviously he's the only one who's got an Oscar he was in recently a Reagan movie actually Dennis Quaid another one who'll be pissed off by this announcement Dennis Quaid played Reagan and I think he played a sort of Soviet agent Jon Voight in that but it was a sort of red state movie that the critics hated but it kind of broke even I think it might be the record holder for the biggest difference between critics' ratings of a movie on Rotten Tomato and customer ratings of a movie on Rotten Tomato.

25:33I think the critics' ratings are 14 % or something like that, and the customer rating is 98%. Okay, well, as I say, it broke even just about. He's a record holder. I was trying to work out how they've worked together. Now, Stallone and Gibson were in Expendables 3 together. Wow. Yeah, you know, Expendables. Sylvester Stallone leads a team of sort of government-backed mercenaries and all these old action stars turn up in it. Hold on, perhaps Trump is just doing Expendables 4. Yeah, I mean, in lots of ways. Mel Gibson played a guy, the villain, who's called Conrad Stonebanks. Can't believe you haven't used that.

26:11Conrad Stonebanks. And they have a physical fight. Stallone and Gibson. Mel said it was like Godzilla vs. Kong, which is a much more successful movie that they weren't in. Sylvester Stallone said, Mel's very fast and strong and it was great being punched by him. And Gibson said it was kind of like movie sex. We didn't actually do it. and of course you're battling arthritis, but it was fun. That's funny. It sounds more like anti-seamite versus Rocky. Yeah. Well, I mean, that was the other way to build it. There's many ways you could build that particular fight, but Stallone's talked a lot actually about saying that I think that the artist dies twice.