he made me think that everything was going to be reversed and okay and anybody that

money was borrowed from, they would get it back, maybe tenfold. And so it was this weird situation

of having one foot in his reality and potentially believing the things he was saying or even over

time wanting to believe them more and more because the alternative was so, the alternative was worse,

the alternative was like, was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare.

The following is a conversation with Sarma Melangales, a chef and restaurateur who was the

subject of the Netflix documentary Bad Vegan, Fame, Fraud and Fugitives, that documents the rise and

fall of her vegan raw food restaurants in New York City that ended in what she called a road

trip from hell, being arrested in Tennessee, her pleading guilty for stealing over two million

dollars and serving four months at Rikers Island Jail. Sarma disputes the veracity of the documentary

and its conclusions, saying that she was misrepresented. So I wanted to talk to her to get

the full story, to seek understanding of who she is as a human being, the good and the bad.

This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description

and now, dear friends, here's Sarma Melangales. You said that you did a lot of reading when you're

growing up and you mentioned Fear and Loading in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. So from the

reading you've done in those early days, how did you see the world? Was it to you a beautiful

place or a cruel place? I don't think I thought about the world. You were focused on family,

just basic day to day life? I think I was focused on day to day. I had an awareness of not fitting

in, but I think back then it felt like something was wrong versus some people are just that way.

And speaking of books, I read a book called Party of One by a woman named Anali Rufus that somebody

gave me and suggested I read, and that helped a lot. That was one book that made me feel like

it made me understand things from the past that I hadn't understood before, specifically kind of

feeling out of place, even among my family, which is where you're not supposed to feel out of place.

Yeah, I'm not sure where I saw it, but I think you mentioned that you were a bit of a loner,

and I also think I saw somewhere pictures of you with green hair in high school and a wild

haircut. What was that about? Was that real? Am I just imagining? No, you're not imagining it.

It's strange because I was kind of a loner, so it'd be strange to do something that calls so

much attention to yourself, because back then, I mean, I grew up in a suburb of Boston in Newton,

and anybody that was there around that time, probably if you said that girl with green hair

or blue hair was blue most of the time, they would remember seeing me walking down the street,

because it stood out like crazy, especially back then. Now, it wouldn't stand out so much,

but back then, it really stood out. So, I was trying to think about why I did that when I was

kind of shy, and on the one hand, wouldn't want to bring attention to myself, but I did something

that did, and it wasn't my family to their credit. They were fine with it, so it wasn't a rebellion

against them or anything like that. They were fine with it. I don't think they loved it, but...

Yeah, dad was a physicist at MIT. Yes. So, he was cool with your green hair when you're a rebellion.

That's just the way of life. He was fine with the green hair, but I think

in some ways, maybe they had to be fine with it, because I didn't cause problems otherwise,

and I got good grades in school. I was a very low maintenance child, I think.

Even with the green hair. So, Hunter S. Thompson wrote a lot of good stuff.

He has a lot of just brilliant quotes, a lot of brilliant lines. So,

one of the ones I love is, life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving

safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke,

thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride. What do you think

about that? Is that good life advice from Hunter S. Thompson? I think so. I think he followed

it, right? Somewhere, I heard recently what he consumed in a day, and it was kind of astonishing.

It's funny, when I was in college, there were always really interesting people coming through

speakers and whatnot, and I tended to not go to events and whatnot, but in the four years I was

there, I mean, really interesting people came through and gave talks. I don't know, just a lot

of famous people, but then one day Hunter S. Thompson came to speak, and that was the only

one I attended. Oh, wow. That was the only interesting person who came to speak on the

campus that I attended was Hunter S. Thompson, and he had a glass of whatever it was, whiskey,

and I don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was entertaining.

And yeah, I mean, later in his life, he started making less and less sense,

but he was still somehow embodying the crazy that he represented throughout his life,

the boldness, the fearlessness, the wildness, all that kind of stuff. And we'll talk about

Johnny Depp a little bit too. Funny enough, there's an echo. Obviously, Johnny Depp played him,

or he starred in Field Unloading, and they hung out together, and it just seemed to somehow,

like, the universe rhymes in these two individuals. They're both mad men in different

kind of ways. So you also told me that Leon the professional is one of your favorite films.

It's also the reason you named your dog Leon. So what do you find beautiful and powerful about

this film? I've watched it a bunch of times, but it's been a while since I've watched it.

So for people who haven't watched it, there's a guy named Leon played by John Arnaud.

You know, there's a young girl, I don't know, 13, 14, Matilda played by Natalie Portman,

and she's abused. She has a really hard life. Her parents are spoiler alert,

murdered, and then she finds protection under this fellow Leon, who also happens to be a

professional assassin. And he is also kind of a force comp type character, like he's a really

simple human. He almost, he seems to be like the immature one, or like rather the one who's young,

and she seems to have a wisdom far beyond her age because of the hard life she had to live through,

and then they're here huddling together from the cruelty of the world

and finding connection. Yeah, I think it's one of those films where

there's so many interesting things about it, but I'm sure one of them is just the contradiction

of him being a caring person and reluctant to get attached to her. He tries to, I think he

knows, he's very reluctant to get attached to her in the beginning. And so you see all of his

humanity, but yet he's also an assassin that kills people. So that's interesting. And I think

probably a psychoanalyst would have a field day with why I like that money so much.

And I haven't gone there myself, but there's something I think about. She,

even in the brief part that depicts her in the beginning, it seems clear that she's sort of

out of place in her family. And then yeah, there's all kinds of interesting things about their

relationship along the way. What I like about that movie, and I had to think about it recently

because I've read stuff about it that bothered me, or it bothered me the fact that I haven't

really thought about it before. For people who haven't watched the movie, so here's a young

underage girl who kind of comes onto him. First of all, I think she actually just doesn't know what

like familial love is. So this is the only way she knows how to express love. That's one. And

two is, you know, a lot of bad people in this world would take advantage of that.

Right. And the fact that she finally met a human being who doesn't, and is just there to protect her.

That's a real sort of, I don't know, a powerful statement of what it means to be sort of like

a father figure, I suppose, a protector. So that, to me, I love the idea of being sort of the

protector. That there's something worthwhile in this world to protect amidst all the cruelty

that's all around. So that's a beautiful kind of, you're basically saving this young human's,

or you're repairing this young human's path

to love, to real love in life. Because that idea of love was destroyed for her,

just family, everything is, everything is sort of, everything around her is broken.

And he's kind of repairing it by reestablishing what that kind of love can be. I don't know.

And the plant, they save the plant also. Well, there's also just the simple,

the simplicity of the film, just from a cinematic perspective is beautiful.

The music, the way it looks, the minimalism. Even the violence was beautiful.

Yeah, violence. It was over the top. And also the bad guy, the bad cop, played by Gary Oldman.

Yeah, he was amazing. Yeah, I think he was listening to Beethoven

or something like that. And he'd taken some sort of pills and drugs and some kind.

So there was a kind of, like it's part of the orchestra, like the violence was part

of some kind of musical creation. Yeah, it's interesting because I turn away from

violence or films usually that have violence or TV or anything that has that sort of

element to it except in certain cases where... Where the violence is beautiful.

Yeah, yeah. Or did you see the movie True Romance?

Yes, that's my second favorite movie. Okay, that's probably my favorite movie.

Oh, well, that's my second favorite movie. That's a more simple kind of love.

But also with the violence that is beautiful, I suppose you could say. Yeah. And my favorite

scene is the one with Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini. Oh, yeah. There's a shotgun

involved. Yeah. Yeah. And then... It actually makes me cry every time I see it, for some reason.

So for people who haven't seen the film, I think he's actually, I think he's hitting her

or like there's blood and violence and so on because he's resisting being murdered.

Yeah, there's a lot of violence. And then, you know, he throws her into the glass,

the shower thing, and she's all cut up and beat up and...

Only then she laughs. Yeah, there's just so much passion in it. You know, she knows she's gonna,

or in that moment, she knows or thinks she knows that she's gonna die anyway.

Because she knows he's gonna kill her. So she kind of gives it all she has and...

But she also just has guts. She's not afraid.

Yeah. Well, and also she's, you know, she loves Clarence.

Yeah. The love comes through to that violence. Yeah. Yeah. Just like Clarence,

her fella in that film has the same kind of thing when he visits...

Well, it was Gary Oldman again. It was Gary Oldman again. That's right.

Yeah. The pimp. Looking very different.

Drexel. Drexel, yeah. Yeah. And he's also fearless in that interaction, saying she's now mine.

It's interesting. That movie is so romantic and a happy ending, spoiler alert, in a way.

That's what I like about it too, because I feel like some movies should come with...

I don't want to watch a movie if it's going to be devastating, usually unless it's worthwhile

in some other way, but I'm kind of sensitive and I don't want... I don't like movies that have a

terrible ending. You know, I mean, there's a book I read because it got so many good reviews,

and the very last scene, the woman steps in front of a train and it was like...

So, I'm partial to movies with happy endings. Leon ends with loss. Leon, the movie.

Right, but it's still inspiring. A love persists in some kind of form.

Yeah. She persists. And the plant. And the plant.

Okay, sure, sure. Drew Romans does have one of the... I mean, it's probably unhealthy.

That ending scene is just amazing. You're so cool. Is that one the one where she just kind of

looks at Clarence and her son and child or whatever and she's saying, you're so cool,

you're so cool? Yeah. That's love. That's the opposite of it.

I just thought the movie has so much in it because it's funny and there's so many good

actors in that film. Brad Pitt plays in that film, a pivotal role of Pothead on Couch.

Yeah, they're all so good and funny and Michael Rappaport and even Val Kilmer,

people don't realize he's in the movie because he doesn't look like himself.

Wait, what did Val Kilmer do? Val Kilmer's in the very end. It's...

You know, when he's... There's like the Elvis sitting there, walking to him in the end.

That's Val Kilmer. Yeah, you don't notice it unless you somehow either are very

perceptive or noticed it in the credits. Yeah. And Quentin Tarantino wrote the film,

I think, which is interesting, directed by Tony Scott. And the music is beautiful too.

And Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper plays Clarence's

dad and they have this very racist sounding scene, but the big important aspect of that scene is

it's a father willing to die to protect his son. I mean, so much beautiful violence in that film.

There is. There is. I love that film so much. And she's a prostitute or not really part time,

short time. No, it was her first time. First time. Yeah. Okay. And he saved her.

My third favorite film has no violence whatsoever. What's your third? A room with a view.

I feel like you'd like it. It's, I forget the author. It's a book and I read the book much

later, but it's Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day Lewis is in it and Julian Sands.

Daniel Day Lewis is a fascinating character. He's amazing in this film because he plays,

he's very funny. He sort of plays a, he's a comical character, which is unlike most of what

he does, I think. I don't watch a ton of movies so, but yeah, he plays, his role is funny.

Well, that's a heck of a top three. You brought me some books, some bread and books.

Yeah. Some Russian bread, Russian inspired bread.

Yeah. I mean, it's Latvian, but it's similar to, close enough, similar to what's made in

Russia and it's made at a Russian bakery in Brooklyn. Where your dad is from, right?

My dad is from Latvia, yeah. So you got me some books,

beautiful ruins. Yeah. And if you never read them, who cares? That's totally fine. Yeah,

people give you books and then you feel like you just, you're, you sort of feel like.

I see this is, we'll talk about this. This is part therapy session. I don't feel the need

to, to satisfy people's happiness. That's a good thing. Okay. So, but they, it could also be a,

an opportunity to experience something I never otherwise would have. So beautiful ruins.

It's a book that made me laugh and cry and it's just a happy story. And for some reason,

I don't know exactly why, but for some reason, when you asked me to comment for, it just,

I thought, oh, I'm going to bring a copy of that book. That's, you just felt it came, the voice

told you. Yeah. There's others, darkness visible. These are more. A memoir of madness, compelling,

harrowing, a vivid portrait of a debilitating disorder that offers the solace of shared

experience in New York Times. This is, there's a little bit about this book that reminds me of

the Carl Diceroth book because he writes about his own condition in, I mean, he's an amazing writer.

So he writes about it in this beautiful way. And oddly enough, in some ways, it's kind of delightful.

So it's not at all a depressing book. At least I didn't find it depressing at all. I don't think

it is. But he writes about his own experience with depression in such a beautiful way.

My own copy is full of underlines. I would love that copy too. I would love to look into the

underlines and the, and then the books with notes, those little secrets that people leave.

That's part of why I like paper books is because I underline, I tend to underline like crazy. The

Carl Diceroth book is full of underlines too. Well, I do the same thing on Kindle, but

and then you can actually more effectively go back to the things you've underlined because

you highlight and so on. But in fact, when you underline on paper books, you sometimes never

go back, which always makes me sad. To the book? To the things you've underlined.

In the paper books? Yeah, in the paper books. Oh, I do. I go back. Yeah, I go back a lot.

Do you wonder what the heck you were thinking about when you wrote something?

No. Well, sometimes I underline things that are, well, also what I do is I have a whole file

in Evernote of transcribed quotes from books, ones that I want to save. So I might underline a lot

of things in a book and then maybe like a third of them. I want to write them down somewhere.

So I write those down. And I think even the time it takes to transcribe it is somehow worthwhile.

It's like searing it in your brain. And you're reliving the memory of having it read at the first

time. Yeah. And then sometimes I'll pick up books. I even, and sometimes I just underline

sentences that are, it's not the content of the sentence. It's more that it's just a beautifully

written sentence or like a particularly apt metaphor or something that's really nice.

And I like paper books too because I bought beautiful ruins. I would have never heard of it,

I don't think, except one of my favorite things is to go to used bookstores. Actually,

Goodwill sometimes has really good big book selections depending on the area where you go.

Sometimes you find a lot of treasures there. And what ends up happening a lot is I end up

buying books that I know sometimes also because I lost all my belongings at one point. So all very

often buy books that I've already read just to have them. But then what always ends up happening is

I'll find, there'll be a couple of books that I buy that I've never heard of the author. I don't

really know anything about, I don't know anything about the book at all, but something drew me to

it. And what I like about that is you're buying used books. So it costs a dollar or two. So if

you made a mistake, like no big deal, who cares. So, but every time I come back with a book haul,

there's usually at least one gem that I end up loving. And I'm so glad that I read it. And

Beautiful Ruins was that book for me. And I was drawn to it because of the cover art,

like I just love, I just love the cover and the colors. And then I picked it up and read the bag

and bought it. And I also feel bad sometimes buying used books when the author is still alive,

because I feel like if you write a book, you should get the royalties. So.

But you get to live with that regret.

Well, also, I mean, I'll usually end up putting a picture of Leon reading the book online and

then other people buy it and read it. And so I feel like I've made up for it.

You make up for it.

I've made up for depriving him of the royalties.

I used to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I know it well. I used to hang out at the pit in Harvard Square with my green and blue hair

when I was very way too young to be doing that by myself.

And there's a guy that I think has been there for a long time,

sort of between Kendall and Central that would just lay out used books and sell them.

And I always loved that guy. Whoever he was,

had a cool hat. He's an older gentleman. And you could just tell he's seen some things.

I don't know who he is. I always wanted to actually like talk to him for a long time,

but I was too afraid. Maybe because I wouldn't be able to handle what he had to tell me.

I don't, because I almost wanted to maintain the innocence of just, okay, here's this guy.

But he was so, every time you would ask him a question about a book, first of all,

he's read all of them.

Oh, that's interesting.

Which means he's traveled quite a few places inside these worlds.

And then you would tell him, I would look at a book, right?

And you just, he would catch you being curious about it.

And then he would walk up to you and then he would start talking about the book.

And he would always forget that you were there.

He's almost like, he's not trying to sell you the books.

Part talking to himself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like almost like an ex girlfriend he's visiting through this book or something.

Did you buy books from him?

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

But the experience of just being there, because he lays them out and people actually

that watch or listen to this, probably will be able to tell me what his name is.

Because I'd love to find that guy again. I'm sure he's still there.

Maybe he'll have him on the podcast.

I would 100% will. But it's almost terrifying.

I'm not sure I can handle, because he's been through some things.

I'm not sure if he's homeless or just looks like it.

Yep. That's sometimes a thing.

And some of my favorite people either are homeless or look like it.

So. Okay. What's the third one?

The confession of a sociopath by M. E. Thomas.

A lifespan hiding in plain sight.

It's a book I recommend a lot, because I've read a lot about sociopathy.

And I've read all the books by psychologists.

And this one's written by a woman who understands herself that she is a sociopath.

And so it's beautifully written.

But I learned more from that book than from any other book.

And I think I thought about it a long time ago.

So I think a lot of conversations you've talked a lot about good and evil.

And whether everybody's really good or some people are not good.

And I think sociopathy is something that I think the world needs to understand much better.

And so that book helped me understand a lot.

And it's beautifully written.

And she tackles all the really interesting moral questions.

Like, what if we were able to definitively diagnose people in some way?

You could immediately identify who's a full blown sociopath.

And then what is a society, would you do with them?

Because in most cases, they're just going to cause destruction and pain and harm.

And or potentially rise to power and become president or something.

So I just found that book fascinating.

And we'll return to this idea because it's fascinating.

We'll return to human psychology and human nature.

But let's go through the timeline of your life.

Let's take a stroll.

So you wrote that the documentary about you called bad vegan,

fame, fraud, fugitives is not a documentary.

You got some things right, some things wrong,

and some were, quote, disturbingly misleading.

So let's go through and get things right today.

First, can I give you a whirlwind summary the way I understand it?

And also for context of people.

So 2004, you, Matthew, Kenny, and Jeffrey Chaudhuro

opened Pure Foods and Wine in New York City.

Did I say their names correctly?

Pure Food and Wine.

No, there are names.

Oh, there's.

Well, yeah.

Matthew, Kenny, and Jeffrey Chaudhuro.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, and I'll ask about what it takes to launch and run a restaurant in New York City.

That's a fascinating story in itself.

So it's an upscale raw food restaurant.

All right.

That's 2004.

2007, you opened one Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway.

And second and third locations in 2009 and 14.

All of those things close in 2016, 15 and 16.

Okay.

All right.

2009, Jeffrey lent you $2.1 million to buy the business outright,

and Matthew is out.

Matthew was out earlier than that.

And then time passed, time passed.

And I had, what was complicated is I had started the one Lucky Duck brand on my own.

It first was a dot com that was doing like delivery?

It was a dot com where people could order ingredients and things and all of the products

that we made and packaged.

So we made a bunch of cookies and snacks and things that were, I think, different.

And if I may say so myself, better than other.

Strong words.

Products out there.

Talking trash already about the cookies.

But I feel like I can brag about our food and products because I wasn't,

oh, a few recipes early on I came up with, but it was the people that worked with me

that created really good recipes and products.

And I was just kind of there curating it all or helping to get it out there.

What was your favorite thing that you've created?

Maybe yourself eat.

Not you created, but this whole, all of these efforts have created in terms of meal.

Like you said, cookies.

What are we talking about here?

That's a hard question.

Which is okay, not the favor, but like something that pops into memory that brought you joy.

The Malomar.

Everybody loved the Malomar.

So very often we made like raw vegan versions of things that people are familiar with.

So it was, I think it was pecans.

It was like a salty cookie made with nuts and then covered in chocolate.

And then there's a big blob of coconut cream.

I love coconut.

Which it didn't taste coconutty.

Our ice cream was made with the coconut also.

It's like the meat from coconut's pureed and then there's some soaked cashews in there.

But anyway, it was a blob of vanilla flavored cream.

Kind of like a healthy natural version of fluff.

I don't know if you're familiar with fluff.

Basically every single word you say I'm not familiar with, you should see my diet.

I don't.

It's like steak and vegetables.

A fluff is like a thing that I remember it from my childhood.

Like peanut butter and fluff is a ridiculously delicious combination.

Is it fluffy or is it not?

It's like a marshmallow.

It's basically like if you softened the marshmallows and made it into a luxurious,

amazing goo and then put it in a jar and then made it spreadable.

It's spreadable marshmallows kind of.

Oh, I see.

I think that's, yeah.

Spreadable marshmallows, got it.

Yeah.

So there's a big blob of that.

I didn't know that existed.

That's a thing.

Fluff.

Fluff.

I know.

Does everyone, do people know about this?

Oh yeah, everybody knows.

Okay.

People, I mean, I think so.

People know about fluff.

See, I think I went, I took the road less traveled by.

You know, I went the peanut butter and the tallow road in terms of spreadable things.

Nutella is like the chocolate version.

And then fluff is like the vanilla equivalent sort of.

Cool.

But I think commercial fluff that you buy in the store is just like sugar and whatever

else they put in there.

So it's not actually fluffy.

It's.

It's kind of fluffy, but it's wet.

Because Nutella is not fluffy.

Yeah.

It's, so it's like Nutella if you whipped it and then kind of got a little bit like,

a little bit aerated.

So it's a bit more fluffy.

So fluff was a part of the formula here.

So there's fluff.

So the, the coconut cream that we made was like a healthy version of fluff kind of,

except it would, you know, you could make a, a quenelle, like a, like a little scoop of it.

And it would stay in that form.

Malomars were refrigerated.

And then there's like chocolate drizzled over that.

So it had that like salty, sweet thing going on.

That was probably my favorite.

That's a dessert.

Yeah.

It was like a, it was like a dessert snack.

It wasn't as, you wouldn't order it on the restaurant menu, but in the takeaway,

you could get them, or sometimes some people would get them shipped on dry ice and pay a

lot of money, like a lot of money to have them shipped on dry ice.

People are funny.

I know.

I kind of want to like name drop because it was Tom Brady used to order them.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah.

They would order those shipped on ice to Boston.

Oh, yeah.

Continuing on, in 2011, you meet Anthony Stranges on Twitter and then in real life,

also around this time, I think before you got your rescue dog, a pit bull named Leon.

Yeah.

2011, 2010.

Do you remember?

Um, it was September, 2010.

So, because I think he was born roughly around March.

I gave him a designated birthday of March 10th, 2010.

Why is that, why March 10th?

I wrote about the story of adopting him on my website a long time ago, and then I reposted

it here on my current website.

And what happened, I got weirdly obsessed with Leon before he was Leon.

He was a dog in a shelter named Quinn.

And I couldn't stop thinking about him.

And the...

Him specifically.

Him specifically.

You saw him and there's something very special about him.

I was trying to convince somebody else to adopt a dog.

So, and I...

Alec Baldwin.

Yeah.

And it didn't occur to me that I would get...

I like how you didn't name drop him, but you named drop Tom Brady.

I like it.

So, I was trying to convince him to get a dog because I thought, you know, he should have a dog.

I saw Leon's picture and just got weirdly obsessed with it in a way that I couldn't really explain.

And I was laying in bed one night and thinking, I just couldn't stop thinking about him.

The dog and the paper were...

Or the description in the shelter bio said that he was roughly five months old.

Or however, whatever it gave us his age, I went back and it would have been March 20...

Would have been March of that year that he was born.

And I had a cat that I was particularly attached to.

I had two cats, brother and sister, but the boy cat, we had sort of like a...

Something that felt like a, you know, like we'd look at each other and like there was something there.

I don't know what it was, but and in fact, when he got sick, I knew it before he even had any symptoms.

It was like something in the way that he looked at me.

I knew something was wrong and then...

Was it friendship?

Was it like, was there a power dynamic?

Cats seem to not really...

Give a fuck?

Yeah, they seem to dismiss you.

Usually, yeah.

Your entire worth as a human being in a single look.

Was that there?

He was more dog like.

He would occasionally fetch like this little styrofoam thing I had.

He would fetch it and bring it back.

And he was friendly and, you know, if somebody came over, you would jump in their lap.

He was less standoffish than most cats.

But there was just something about the way he would look at me.

I don't know.

Maybe probably in his mind, he's just a cat.

I give him food.

Whereas in my mind, it's some kind of, you know, great soul connection.

Great, great long running romance.

Not in his kitty mind, but either way.

So he died in March and I thought...

So I sort of concocted this.

I just thought, you know, that well, if he died and he died on March 10th.

And so I thought, well, maybe Leon was born that same day.

And that's why I'm so drawn to him.

I don't know.

That makes sense.

It's one of those things that is sort of.

When you saw him, you just like, there's something.

It was his picture, yeah.

Oh, the picture.

You were drawn something about the personality in the eyes.

It was something about his picture.

I don't know what it was.

And everybody at the time was like, what are you thinking?

Why would you get a dog?

You can't, you know, can't even take care of yourself.

You're overworked and busy.

And why would you get a five month old pit bull mix?

You know, why not get an older dog that's easier to take care of?

And for me, it was like, I don't, I don't want any dog.

I don't want, my intention isn't to get a dog,

but there's something about this dog that I have to get.

And so I went to see him.

And then I had already filled out an application.

It was just, I went to see him and then I, it was the afternoon.

And I sort of decided in my head, like, all right,

I'm coming back to get him.

I have to.

And the next morning I got on the subway and went back to get him.

And I was crying on the subway.

And I remember thinking that people, I don't like crying in public.

I cry a lot, but I don't like crying in front of other people.

I love it.

I thought people on the train looking at me probably think that,

you know, I just, somebody died or.

Sorry, you're crying on the way there, on the way back.

On the way there to get him.

I don't, and I don't know why I was crying.

It was just something about it was overwhelming.

So.

So tears of happiness or tears of something.

Something.

I, yeah, I think tears are overwhelming.

And now I'm like jumping off, but there was some, I don't, now I'm trying,

was it in your conversation or the book Carl Diceruf talks about tears of joy

and trying to explain them.

And he said something about how it was like about, you know,

because tears of sadness could be understood in a,

having like a evolutionary purpose, but wide tears of joy.

And I think he said it was something about like hope that could be like lost.

So if you cried at a wedding, it might be like you're crying because their love is beautiful

and you're crying because, you know, they could get hit by a bus tomorrow or something,

you know, like it had something to do with that.

And I thought.

But I thought to me it feels like overwhelmed because then how would that explain music

because music will make me cry a lot because it's, it's anything beautiful like love.

You realize you're going to have, it's going to be over one day.

Or it's just overwhelming.

It could be overwhelming.

I think it's just overwhelming.

But over, it could be like, if you had to explain like one way to explain it,

as you're saying is it's so awesome that it breaks your heart that it's going to be over.

This feeling is going to be over.

The, either it's the song or the person, you're going to lose them one day.

But even when you're just watching something that this is completely ridiculous,

but I remember one time I probably was hormonal or something,

but it was like an episode of Family Feud years ago and the, the fam, oh no, Wheel of Fortune.

It was Wheel of Fortune and some family like won all this money and they were so happy.

Like it just, they were so happy.

They must probably needed the money or something.

And I started crying and I'm thinking, why am I crying?

But I think it's just, I think it's just like an overwhelming,

I think it's overwhelming in some way and crying because crying is a relief.

Like you feel better after you cry.

But that's not, doesn't explain the crying.

You feel better after you cry and you're saying it's overwhelming.

But that's on the surface.

The question is what's going on underneath.

That's the younging shadow.

And I don't think neither you or I can answer that question.

But there's something going on underneath.

Right.

There's probably something that touches you in some specific way.

Yeah.

And so you were crying in the subway.

So I was crying in the subway.

It's very, it's very New York thing to do.

Yeah.

Well, that's one of the things I love about New York is people,

you can be weird and do strange things and nobody's going to look at you strangely.

The fascinating thing about New York is super crowded and yet you can still feel super alone.

But also energized because a lot of other things and places will make me feel depleted.

But there's something about the energy of New York specifically that feels energizing.

I mean, everybody's going up about their day excited for a future they're building and

so on and that could be energy.

Sure.

Sure.

It could be overwhelming though.

It can be.

Yeah.

I mean, also depending on what neighborhood and what part.

Well, I'm just talking about the subway.

Right.

Yeah.

And then there's the musicians.

I love New York.

New York at its best is a special place.

I've never lived, but every time I visit,

it's so many characters, so many fascinating people.

And then there's a bunch of people always crying in the subway and you're one of those people.

I was one of those people one day.

Yeah.

I befriended some busking musicians, like the guys that just play out on the street,

these two young guys playing guitar.

And I felt like it was one of those moments where it was like handed camera because nobody

was paying attention.

And I thought it was like, it was so beautiful.

I may have cried or almost cried.

But anyway, I ended up becoming friends with them and helping them out in some ways.

And I knew I was like, well, they're going to do really well.

Yeah.

And now they're like playing large places and it's kind of fun to watch via Instagram.

You know, they're going on tour in Europe and they were these two scrappy guys.

Well, now it's just one of the guys.

But they had like no money, nowhere to live, nothing, and another.

And they didn't quit.

No.

Persisted.

That's cool.

Yeah, exactly.

So, but I cried on the subway and I got there and he was there and I adopted him.

But it just felt very profoundly like a force that was beyond me.

Like I couldn't not get him.

So he was the same in person as he was in the picture.

Like meaning in terms of like something like pulling you towards him, like something.

Yeah.

When I first met him the day before, he was really distracted, which I think is, you know,

he is a puppy that spends most of his day in a cage, which is not natural.

So when I, they let him, they let me take him for a walk and he was kind of, you know,

distracted in all of the place, but then when we put him back in the cage, he sort of lay down

and looked at me and I looked back at him.

And of course I imagined all kinds of, I just looked at him and I thought, all right,

don't worry, I'm coming back to get you.

Like, I'll get you.

So, yeah, it just, it felt like, it felt like something that I had no choice that I had to do.

And that was a beginning of a 12 year journey together.

An ongoing, an ongoing one.

But so I wrote about these things on my website and, and I think it was, you know,

among the many things that was later weaponized by Anthony Stranges.

Oh, the fact that there's something close to your heart.

Yeah.

And also just, it's not like I believe that he was, you know, that I was just expressing

my feelings about how I felt going to get him, that there was something about Leon

specifically that I, it was like, I felt like I had to get him.

So.

Is there words you can put to your connection with Leon?

Like, is it love?

Is it friendship?

Is it some kind of, like, what is it?

Or are we getting to the crying and being overwhelmed?

Something you just can't put words to?

Yeah.

It's probably something that's hard to put words to.

Kind of like, I sort of feel like love being something that's hard to define is part of,

is the definition.

Of love.

The fact that you can't define it.

You know that.

The moment you define it, you're no longer talking about love.

Sort of.

Something like that.

Okay.

So.

Well, my definition of love is whatever's going on in true romance.

I don't know.

Let me fly through the timeline before we get to any of the interesting details.

So in 2011, you meet Anthony Strangeas.

Then in 2012, you do get married.

2015, the staff walk out due to failure to pay from the two restaurants.

It reopens in April of 2015 and July of that year.

There's another walk out and so on.

There's all this kind of stuff.

It's confusing timeline.

Well, it's not, to me, that's not even, the point is in 2015, there's chaos happening.

Okay.

2016 in the spring, pure foods and wine closes.

Closed in 2015.

2015.

Okay.

There's some factual stuff that's not, yeah, maybe correct me on it.

To me, it's not that important to me.

The spirit of the thing is important.

Okay.

May 12, 2016, you and your then husband Anthony Strangeas were arrested after he ordered pizza

using his real name.

Okay.

In May, 2017, you plead guilty to stealing more than $2 million from investors and scheming

to defraud as well as this is from Wikipedia.

Yeah, they're wrong.

Well, let me just finish reading it and then you tell me why it's wrong.

In May, 2017, you plead guilty to stealing more than $2 million from investors and scheming

to defraud as well as criminal tax fraud charges.

Why is Wikipedia wrong and how dare you?

Well, I mean, I did plead guilty to those things, which I had to, oh, I was, I got a

jury duty summons and I had to fill out like what charges I plead guilty to and I had to

go online and look it up because I didn't really remember, which is, I thought that

was interesting.

I had to go look it up, but actually, let me finish the time because there's one more

point.

Oh yeah.

March 16, 2022, bad vegan documentary comes out where you're interviewed, does they tell

the story, some stuff is true, sometimes some is not, some is disturbing, misleading as

you said.

Okay, timeline over.

Anyway, what's wrong with the, how would you elaborate onto the you pleading guilty

for $2 million stealing?

So a lot of people plead guilty when they're, for reasons other than they're actually guilty.

So it's, even right now, if I knew that I was going to have to spend four months or

three and a half at Rikers, and I was thinking about this recently, and even if I knew that

I'd be acquitted at the end of a trial, I very likely would have just taken the four

months because the stress of going through a trial, but in particular be incredibly stressful,

not knowing the outcome.

And then money and expense I didn't have, and so people plead guilty all the time, even

if they don't think that they should.

My situation was so complicated and hard to understand that it just was the easier thing

to do, but also I just was kind of going on the advice of lawyers.

So the choice, just to understand, was to plead guilty or to go through a lengthy trial,

and that trial would stretch a long time, and it would be extremely stressful.

And extremely expensive.

Because you have to pay the lawyers.

Right, and I didn't have anything.

Right.

And so a lot of people in that situation might choose to plead guilty, and so that doesn't

necessarily mean the full heaviness of that statement of guilt.

Right, and I think people plead guilty all the time in situations where they're being

threatened with a heavy sentence, and they sort of feel like they have no choice, but

that's kind of part of a lot of things that are messed up about the system overall that

didn't necessarily apply in my case.

So we'll talk about to what degree you're guilty, and what that even means.

Yeah, yeah, because it depends on intention, I think.

Yeah, yeah, but then the word intention also means a lot of things like the word love.

That's true.

All right.

So the restaurant closed the first time when I was away and told to be off communication.

And then I...

By Anthony.

Yes.

And then...

He told you not to talk to anybody.

He told me not to open email or look at my phone or whatever.

And so when I came back and had to get it reopened, which seemed like an unbelievably

difficult task, and I was kind of shocked that I was able to pull it off, I worked incredibly

hard to get it reopened, because that placement meant everything to me, and so I just had

to get it reopened.

Were you surrounded by people that were just ingrate you?

At that time, well...

The staff and all that.

Yeah, but most of them came back, a lot of them came back.

I think what was so unbelievably painful about that whole time was like not being able to

tell anybody what was really going on, and in a sense, not really knowing what was going

on myself, but not being able to...

Having to pretend all the time was just...

So you didn't really tell anybody about Anthony?

About him and what was really going on, in part because I didn't really understand what

was going on.

So what I did was I raised money to reopen the restaurant, and I think I raised something

like eight, maybe like 900 grand, and probably 90% of that went to reopen the restaurant.

And I even made two sales tax payments right before we disappeared.

So it just sort of logically seemed...

So it's not like all of this money was taken, and then he and I ran off together with a

whole bunch of money.

It was like I raised a bunch of money to reopen the restaurant because I wanted the restaurant

to exist again, and I wanted to run it, I wanted to reopen the restaurant, and most of that

money went to reopen the restaurant, and then I disappeared.

So the timeline gets a bit wonky.

So this impression was created that we ran off with a whole bunch of money, and we didn't.

So if I wanted to be a criminal and steal a bunch of money, why would I have put it

all back into the restaurant and reopened it, and then also made two $10,000 sales tax

payments that I didn't...

And I also repaid $10,000 of another loan.

I was making repayments and stuff, and then boom, I disappeared.

So is your mind going through a roller coaster here?

So could there have been multiple use there?

So one mind is like, I love this restaurant, I'm going to reopen it, I'm this chef, business

owner, this person, and then the other is a human that's in this complicated love affair.

It was not love affair.

These are just words.

How can I...

Okay, I don't want to...

I say that lightly, but also not because love can make us do dark things, and you can say

that's not love, but okay.

The thing that traps us, the things that pulls us in to a connection with another human being,

that's love, even when it's abusive and dark and toxic and all those kinds of things.

In some cases, I think, like if it's voluntary, but in other cases, somebody pulls you in.

So it's not like you're drawn towards them, they pull you in.

So just to clarify, even when it's not physical, when the pull is with words, so it's emotional.

Yeah.

Okay, where is your mind when you raise $8,000 to $900,000 to open the restaurant, working

your ass off to open this thing, making payments, and then all of a sudden disappearing?

Where was your mind if you had a lengthy conversation with Call of Diceroth in privacy, what would

you be telling him as your therapist?

I would probably be asking him questions.

Okay, no, get the call as part of this.

Well, and actually, I have more questions for Andrew Heberman because I've had to investigate

all of these things myself, like dissociation, and even there's a psychologist who believes

that he must have used neurolinguistic programming on me, which is something that Keith Reynary

from the Nexium Cult, he was known to have used that with people.

And I think neurolinguistic programming is kind of the same as like a sort of like hypnotism.

The only reason I know what NLP is, is because in what I do, there's something called natural

language processing, artificial intelligence stuff, so it has the same like three letters.

What's the other thing that NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming, yeah, anyway, all right, well,

we talked about Andrew, my friend Andrew Heberman offline, and you definitely should do a podcast

with him.

He's a fascinating, he's such a brilliant and kind human being, definitely worth talking

to.

Yeah, I've listened to a lot of his podcast.

And you said that you listened to a lot of his instructions on getting light in the morning

or whatever during the day, it's very important for your mental, like there's all these kinds

of studies, it's good for your mind for your...

Oh, and also the other thing that he got me to do is to try to delay having coffee.

So instead of having coffee right when you wake up.

I always drink a lot of water first.

But then instead of having coffee right away, if you wait an hour or an hour and a half

or two hours, then your body is able to naturally do something that drinking coffee too soon

would sort of blunt that, so then you'll be more tired in the afternoon.

So if you wait an hour and a half or two hours or as long, before you have your first cup

of coffee, then you won't be as tired in the afternoon.

Interesting.

There's a lot of...

Does it work?

Yes.

One coffee addict talking to another coffee addict.

Yes, it works.

And so I try to get up and do other things first before I have coffee.

So and the light thing also makes a lot of sense to me getting light early in the morning.

I have one of those bright light boxes and I would love to have an apartment that had

a little deck or something where I could just step outside because when you live in an apartment,

you kind of have to like go all the way outside and then there's people everywhere.

And so to get that early morning light, isn't that hard to do when you're...

Are people good for you or bad for you?

What does Andrew Heumann say about that?

I'm just kidding.

It's a joke.

Okay.

So moving back to where was your mind that led you to disappear?

To what did you guys go to Vegas first and then Tennessee?

No, I kind of refer to it as like the road trip from hell.

It's a very Hunter S. Thompson way to describe it.

You went back to back country.

Maybe it was Hunter S. Thompsonesque except without actual drugs.

That was one of the first questions my father asked me, was it drugs?

And I wished that I could have said yes because I didn't know how to explain what had happened.

But he took me away involuntarily except of course he wasn't holding a gun to my head

but all along it was like a metaphorical gun.

Was there ever physical abuse?

No.

What would qualify as sexual abuse?

Yes.

But physically, no.

A couple of times we would get into slightly physical fights but he never, I mean he was

big and as large and blubbery as he was.

He was also really strong.

So sometimes he would like subdue me but other than that, no, there wasn't physical violence

but a lot of people will say that the psychological violence is, I don't want to diminish physical

violence but some people say that the psychological and emotional violence is more destructive.

It's just that the physical violence is easier to identify.

It's easier to identify and it seems kind of more straightforward whereas psychological

you know and you have a bruise on your face or you break a bone and those things hopefully

heal in a visible way but psychological stuff, you know, you can't easily identify or understand

or others can't easily identify it.

And then you find yourself crying for no reason at a beautiful song at some point.

Yes.

And it's that that has to do something happening in the depth of your mind.

Okay, so he took you away but where was, I mean where was your mind that was doing both

of those things was able to be taken away but also was pushing to the flourishing, the

reopening and the flourishing of the restaurant?

Well, you know, I wouldn't have reopened the restaurant with and then knowing I was going

to all of a sudden be taken away from it and it was going to get closed again.

You know, it's like why, why would I do that, why would anybody do that?

And one of the things that I tried to do towards the end was I was trying to get myself off

the bank accounts because I didn't want him to be able to get money out of me.

And so there was one time when I tried to get one of the investors we went to the bank

together to put her on as the signer and take me off and because we didn't have the operating

agreement they wouldn't let us do it.

So it was like this little snafu.

And so all of these things are sort of the opposite of criminal intent.

But that's a legal thing.

What's going on in your mind at this time?

I don't know.

I mean.

Oh, did you give yourself a chance to just think?

No.

And I think that's part of one of the things that might have saved me or anybody that's

pulled into a cult.

One of the things that they do is they keep you exhausted, overwhelmed, confused and afraid.

And so you don't have any time to think.

So you're just kind of constantly running and you're confused and then things are happening.

That's funny.

I have some quotes in my book draft because I listen to a lot of podcasts.

I don't know what the logistics are of like crediting a quote from a podcast in a book.

But I have a couple.

That was Andrew Heberman on Joe Rogan said something about if a human or animal, I don't

know how he would know, if a human or animal is stressed, and I'm paraphrasing this horribly,

but they're much more easily prone to be not prone to, but forced into delusional thinking.

And so that quote resonated for me because he kept me in this incredibly stressed out,

afraid, confused state.

And then whatever he's sort of planting in my mind, I'm going to be that much more likely

to just kind of go along with it.

Well, we'll see how this whole journey ends.

Let's actually just step back a little bit and just looking at the employees at the restaurant

and so on.

Do you have remorse for what happened, especially from the perspective of the employees and

the staff?

Yeah.

I mean, hurting them was sort of the last thing that I would ever have wanted to do.

And in part, I mean, there was financial harm, but I don't know whether it's more important

or not, but it was taking a place that was very much like a family to them.

And it was as if I destroyed it.

And so I think that because we were so much like a family, it was almost as if mom went

off the deep end and got together with some cuckoo abusive guy and sort of abandoned them.

And they didn't know what was going on and what was happening.

So do you regret lying to them?

I regret lying to anybody in all of those circumstances, but I wasn't lying.

He made me think that everything was going to be reversed and okay and anybody that money

was borrowed from, they would get it back maybe tenfold.

And so it was this weird situation of having like one foot in his reality and potentially

believing the things he was saying or even over time wanting to believe them more and

more because the alternative was so, the alternative was worse.

The alternative was like, was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare.

So there's this whole situation where you're constantly giving him money, you constantly

borrowing, borrowing money with this idea that it'll be repaid like a hundred X fold.

So it's sort of like lying to somebody because you're planning their surprise party.

You think like, well, I'm lying to somebody, but it's because there's a good reason.

It's sort of, that's not a good example.

But you could have not made it a surprise party and be like pull them in onto the planning

of the party and be honest about like everything that's happening.

Not in a negative way, but like get them in on the fact that, okay, I just need to give

money to this guy, but we'll get, he is a super rich person of some kind and he'll repay.

I mean, I wish I, well, because you're holding on to this.

I mean, that, that's part of the torture is that you're isolated and unable, unable

to tell anybody.

But you're not unable or he was telling you, you're not allowed to say anything to anybody.

I mean, you're choosing not to say anything, but it's because of the sort of the weight

of it.

Cause it's embarrassing to sort of, is it embarrassing, it's something, I mean, what,

why do you not tell others, you know?

What is that?

What's happening to the mind where you don't tell others?

I don't know, you're part of why the story is that, you know, everything that happened

is hard to summarize and talk about in any concise way is that so much of it happens

in this very slow, slow, slow way and, you know, people always use the whole like frog

and boiling water example, so that by the time you realize you're fucked, it's too late

and it, and it seems hard to believe or understand other people because they see where you are

or where you ended up and they think, well, how did you let that happen?

Well, I don't know, I would I have willingly destroyed my life and hurt all the people

I care about and, you know, allowed my mother to get hurt and I wouldn't have ever, ever

willingly done that, so something else must have happened and that's, that's the part

that's difficult to understand.

Let me ask you about another hard question.

Do you deserve most or all of the blame for the failure of the business or are others

at fault too?

Well, the business didn't fail, it was doing well and so its closing is like it was destroyed.

Who deserves the blame for that?

I'm asking from your perspective when you think about it.

In the privacy of your mind, are you angry at Anthony or are you angry at yourself?

Both.

I think that in the privacy of my own mind and to everybody listening, it's, it's, I

feel responsible.

I feel responsible in the same way that if you kind of did something, if you were driving

and you did something stupid and caused an accident in which other people died, you would

feel, I think, horrifically responsible and you'd blame yourself because maybe you looked

away or checked your phone or something.

But you didn't intend to kill those people, of course.

So for me, it's like I didn't intend to kill, you know, sometimes I say like my own child,

I don't know if that's offensive to some people, but it's like as if I killed my own child.

It was a business, but it was special.

So I don't feel guilt, I feel responsibility and then, you know, I'm angry at him even

though that anger is pointless.

Okay.

Because this has come up.

Let's continue with the hard questions.

Are they going to get easier?

They're going to get easier.

Okay.

Most of them are easy.

This is fun.

We're having fun.

You posted on Instagram, the ending, no, I'm going to cite Instagram like it's Shakespeare.

Okay.

The ending is disturbingly misleading, but still I'm very grateful for this coverage.

Let's talk about the documentary, in quotes, documentary, I'm okay with the criticism

and judgments, but would rather be based on what's true.

And then you say a couple of more sentences and then you say Leon, who has his own Instagram

account, one lucky rescue dog says, hello, he loves you all.

Even if you call me a, quote, defective, arrogant sociopath, it's all okay.

So the hard question, do you think you are in part a sociopath?

No.

Would you know it if you were?

Yes.

How does this work?

So what have you learned from reading this book?

I had all these interesting thoughts, all these sort of questions and thoughts about

it because the book I'm reading now that I'm only about a third of the way through,

he talks about some of the things in the brain structure that are particular to sociopaths.

And so then it makes you think, well, what if that could be tweaked in some way?

Like could you unsociopath a sociopath?

Is it nature or nurture, I guess, as opposed to the question?

I think it's both.

I think it's genetic and then it's like genes that are turned on by things like a particularly

violent childhood or some sort of a dysfunction.

So I think somebody could have the gene, it's not turned on, and then the sociopaths have

the gene and it's turned on.

So sociopath means that you're not able to be empathetic or you're generally not empathetic

to the suffering of others or to the emotions of other?

I mean, what?

It's a hollowness, so it's like you don't have just completely lacking the capacity.

I mean, it's tragic because they wouldn't understand or feel love, but it's like a hollowness.

And then something also about the wiring, and I think also because of that hollowness,

they're able to incredibly quickly look at others and identify their insecurities and

buttons and weak spots.

So they're incredibly good at manipulation.

Is that because they're just able to objectively observe the situation?

Probably in part, but there was some other explanation related to the brain structure

that I read somewhere that made sense to me and I won't remember it because I don't usually...

You're not Andrew Cuban, who seems to reference perfectly single line from every book or paper

he's ever read.

Yes.

Right.

I don't remember things in that way.

I try to usually remember the conclusions.

So like I might remember that he might give a whole long explanation about why it's good

to do this or to take this supplement.

That's a bad habit I have.

Sometimes I'll order supplements and then by the time they arrive, I've forgotten why.

Why?

I forgot why.

Just take them all.

Awesome, but the healthy version.

I hope we get to talk about food because I feel like you have a brain that should be

fed only the best food.

Oh, wow.

So we can talk about that later.

I have a lot of philosophies about that, but certainly fluff is not in the best, what

is best?

We'll definitely talk about food throughout what is best.

That makes me think of Conan.

And I just talked to Oliver Stone, who I didn't realize wrote Conan the Barbarian.

Do you know that in my head, I pictured Conan O. Bryan?

That's what...

He's also one of the funniest.

I was sitting there going, wait, why?

I love him, but when you said that, I was like, why did that make you think of Conan

O. Bryan?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love him so much.

He's such a brilliant human.

Yeah.

Sociopathy.

Sociopathy.

Yeah.

So it's stuff about the brain, fine, but how do you know you're not a sociopath?

Would you know it?

Am I a sociopath?

No.

How would I know it?

How do you know?

Well, having listened to a lot.

Well, wouldn't I be able to be good at faking it?

Isn't that what...

Well, because you'd be out there...

There's a mask on the cover of this book with lipstick.

I don't think you would be doing the work that you're doing.

You'd probably be running for office or a trader on Wall Street or...

One of the things about sociopaths is they kind of need like the stimulation of risk

and danger.

Well, I need, okay, sure.

More than average.

I like...

Hmm.

Okay.

But Wall Street, there's a fakeness, like I don't like the fakeness of the game of it.

Yeah.

That's why I left.

I didn't...

I just...

It was a strange environment.

Okay.

So, you're not a, quote, defective, arrogant sociopath.

What does defective even mean?

I know.

Well, I think that somebody had just called me that and I think that it's easy for people

to say, like, don't read the comments, but it's hard not to because then also you'd miss

the beautiful ones or sometimes like you have to go on there to check a private message

and you just stuff, it's there, people saying terrible things, so I try to...

People say, you know, don't pay attention to the comments, it's hard not to, but I try

to...

Even with the documentary, you try to still kind of see, to look for the good ones, for

the kind ones, for the supportive ones.

There were overwhelming kind comments and so that helped and felt a lot better, but sometimes

the negative comments are based on false information.

So, if somebody knew everything that happened and then wanted to judge me or say things

like that's somehow, at least that's all right, but people saying these things based

on things that are totally false is just...

It's hard to just let that go, but I know that people also say things, you know, for

their own personal reasons.

I had a fascinating exchange with somebody who direct messaged me and called me trash.

You responded.

I responded because it was...

I...

It was amazing.

Okay.

I would do this...

It's a good opener.

It's sort of like a...

I might be procrastinating or...

But I would scroll through because the private messages were overwhelming and there's still

just this massive backlog that I'll never probably get to read.

But the one that called you trash as an opener, you were like, this is interesting.

I just was in a mood and so I responded and I wish I hadn't deleted it because I sort

of deleted a bunch and then I was like, oh, why did I delete that one?

Because I was curious what exactly I said to him.

But I responded to him in a nice way and then he responded back and then it started this

whole back and forth conversation.

So he was kind quickly or no?

Yes.

And then also wanted to get to know me and lives in Pennsylvania and was like, I'll come

to you.

I'm like...

Yeah.

Do you realize if we...

You know, if somehow this just turned into...

That would be our how did you meet story?

Well, he called me trash online, but he ended up having such an insightful comment.

I just found it interesting and I think at first he said, I never imagined you'd reply,

which is part of the whole thing with social media, although this guy wasn't anonymous.

Was not anonymous.

No.

I think he had a private account, but it's like his name and his face was there.

People forget that you're a human being when they message you.

Exactly.

When you message me, I'm a human being.

So I told him that that was hurtful and I guess I wanted to understand more why he said

it and it was surprisingly insightful, but he said something about, again, I wish I hadn't

deleted it, that he was like, I guess I was just angry because that guy...

He said something like, I guess I was just angry because that guy got you and I would...

So it made me think of the whole like sort of incel, jealousy thing that can be very

terrifying if you're female is that like, if you reject a guy, they might turn around

and be violent or angry at you and so his...

Well, to be fair, there's a dormant anger in probably all of us.

I believe there's a capacity for cruelty and anger and destruction all of us and the whole

struggle of life is to emphasize the good stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's not just an incel thing.

It's true for men and women, both capable of cruelty.

That is very true.

But this one guy...

So let me put on my therapist's hat because we started, what did we start with?

I already forgot, but the...

Oh, Leon.

He turned back to sociopath.

Leon.

No, just maybe it's not the best idea to answer the comments that start with your trash.

I don't do it all the time, it just, I happened upon that one and I was just in a certain

mood.

I was just in a certain mood.

Well, let's further offline sort of discuss this mood that you're in because it might

get you in trouble at some point in your future.

Okay.

Can we just jump back, speaking of guys that say as an opener to your trash, how did you

and Anthony Strange's meet?

Can we jump around and tell some of the details here?

Because I believe the documentary doesn't cover that well.

It's not clear.

There's some Twitter interactions and you've kind of assumed, by the way, I do think he

needs some social media coaching on this because I think, I have some books you need

to read, I think, some manuals on how to use Twitter properly, but anyway, apparently you

kind of thought that this person who turned out to be, what was his name?

He called himself Shane Fox, but he turned out to be Anthony Strange's that he was somehow

friends with Al Baldwin because of the friendly interaction on Twitter.

And so he started interacting with him and then there was, how did that escalate quickly

to the meeting?

It escalated slowly and I think, I'm sure it was intentional because had I met him right

away, I would have probably thought like, oh, he's not what I thought he was and no thanks.

But it was a long time, it was many weeks of back and forth conversation digitally one

way or another.

So it was via Twitter and then via direct message and then we both played words with

friends back then and we would message in words with friends and then eventually we exchanged

phone numbers.

How does word with friends work?

What's that?

I know that's a popular game, is that like Scrabble?

It's like Scrabble and you're playing other people and then there's like a chat function.

Yeah.

And then you can chat with them.

So you were this intellectual stimulating game and you were what, like, flirting and

that kind of stuff, like witty banter.

Yes.

A.K.A.

Flirting.

Yes.

But all of that lasted a really long time and he would give me like little tiny bits

and pieces of information about himself that made him seem kind of mysterious.

This is a dark, mysterious man who was a Navy SEAL, strong.

Yeah.

And he would always imply things versus say them outright.

So you're kind of always guessing and filling things in.

Clint Eastwood type of character.

He's not going to say it outright.

He's what?

He's a Clint Eastwood type of character.

He's not going to say it outright.

Right.

He's just going to act badass.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And plus intellectual because of words with friends.

Is that still a thing, by the way?

I think it still exists, yeah, but I feel like if I started playing it again, I would get

a little addicted and stick to the coffee.

One of the interesting things is that I used to think that he like used an app to look

up things, but then he would do it in front of me.

He could like look at, he was really good at it.

And he could look at the board and just like come up with, you know, a hundred point word

that I'd never even heard of.

So I think he had a little bit of that something going on in his brain that was like, I don't

know, a little rain manish or something in the way that he was able to recall.

I think his recall is incredibly.

It's important if you lie a lot.

If you lie a lot.

Yeah.

Good recall.

Okay.

So when it's okay, so how did it escalate slowly from words with friends to meeting in

real life?

Like what?

You know what?

I mean, what?

Okay.

I know it's not a love affair.

That said, when did you kind of get hooked by the, oh, I wonder, you know, like fall

in love.

I think it was just a slow.

Yeah.

When did you fall in love?

It was a slow process.

And I think he found me at a time when there was sort of a perfect storm of the right conditions

for me to fall into whatever I fell into with him because that was heartbroken for the first

time in my life.

Where was the heartbreak coming from?

I had split with my boyfriend of four years.

And that broke your heart?

Yeah.

I mean, it was, I knew, it was a relationship that I knew would end even when I got into

it in the first place, because he's 15 years younger than me.

And surely they can't be the only care, the only reason it wouldn't work.

I need to also give you a book on love.

What's it called?

I'm going to write it.

I don't know.

Okay.

Cause there's another book that I didn't bring.

Okay.

There's no book on Twitter and there's no book on love.

Well, cause there's actually a book on love that I really like that I think you might

like.

What is it?

Like love languages?

I still have to read that one.

No.

It's called on love.

All right.

I can't wait.

I'm going to read the cliff notes.

Bye.

It's short by this guy named Alain de Boton, French name.

I don't trust him already.

No, it's funny and it's beautiful and shocking that he wrote it when he was very young.

And I first heard him on a Krista Tippett podcast.

That's how I end up reading a lot of books is like, you hear somebody on a podcast.

So you were heartbroken.

You knew it was going to work because the age difference, what else?

That's just because the age difference also, you know, I just knew that eventually he'd

want to move on and probably he'd find somebody younger and or was young enough that he still

needed to go have a bunch of other experiences and, you know, probably wanted a family or

what not eventually.

So he was 21 and I was 34 when we first met.

But then we ended up living together for four years and it was the most drama free, like

there was no drama.

And I had just come off, my prior relationship with Matthew Kenny, which was very dark in

many ways and full of all kinds of, yeah, and I just couldn't handle that.

So can I ask you a personal question?

Yes, between us and between us friends.

Is there a part of you that's attracted to the drama and the chaos now looking back?

I feel like that happens a lot and maybe there was at some point, but I don't think so because

you know, part what made that relationship work with his name was Tobin was that there

was no drama, not at all.

And I don't think I could have handled it.

And I feel that way now too.

Like I just couldn't, I can't like fighting or any kind of like the people being passive

aggressive.

I can't, I can't handle that.

So you've had enough storms now you want to calm.

Yes.

So you knew, you knew it wasn't work, I knew it wasn't going to be forever.

Well that that could be just insecurity and cynicism, but fair enough.

And then the heart was broken and now the heart was broken and fragile and there to be manipulated

in some sense.

Yes.

And there's another person that I heard that I quoted my book saying that when your heart

broke and you can't rely on your instincts, somehow your instincts are compromised when

you're heart broken.

And maybe I'm just like looking for excuses as to why this happened, but, but I was heart

broken.

And then I like to see people in their heart broken because it's like shows how much they

really loved somebody.

You know?

Yeah.

It's, it's sad.

But like sometimes love doesn't reveal itself as richly when you're in it versus when you

lose it.

Right.

That's probably true.

Anyway, so your judgment wasn't good.

Great.

So now you're, so you're lonely and you're super busy running the restaurant, but when

you get home you're lonely or like in between.

Yeah.

And I was kind of overwhelmed and I'm sure you were getting a lot of really positive

attention from other guys too, while New York or not, or too busy.

Well, no, because, because it was a restaurant that was constantly, you're like constantly

meeting people and really interesting people and New York is full of a lot of interesting

people.

And you're, you know, attractive.

So you, why are you connected to some mysterious distant man from somewhere else playing over

words?

Because, well, I think now looking back, I think it's because I felt like he understood

me.

And, you know, what was that feeling for coming from, you think, like, what, why did you,

why does one feel that you're understood?

One thing that made me extra easy to target is that I had written a lot of very personal

blogs and things, so in addition to him asking me questions and me probably just being insanely

open and answering whatever he asked me, I had also written and posted a bunch of personal

blogs.

Some of them I've reposted on my new website and then some of them I haven't, but in one

of them I go into detail about my frustrations professionally in growing the business and

having read that and being a very smart person, he would have known kind of precisely what

to say to get me, to get me drawn in.

So I think by waiting so long before we met in person, he'd already, he'd already gotten

me hooked in a way that was going to then make it possible for me to, you know, see

him.

And even though he doesn't look like I thought he did, I'll make excuses for it.

I mean, that's a dangerous thing about when people, and I'm not saying I fell in love

with him in this way.

I feel like there's another explanation for what felt like love.

But when people fall in love quickly, there's that danger that because that's what happens

first, that the more you learn about them, you'll sort of rationalize away things that

might be red flags or things that you don't like.

So I think it's safer to fall in love when you get to know somebody not in the context

of dating them like Jim and Pam on the office.

Did you watch The Office?

Yeah, because, yeah, of course I watched The Office, British Office is better, strong words,

but yes.

Yeah.

But yes.

So, well, yeah, fine.

True.

It might be romantic.

Yeah, I like the romantic.

You can fall, but yeah, it's fine.

But just, I think the better lesson is, yes, that's one thing to say, but the other is

like when you see the red flags, notice them, be a little better about noticing them even

amidst the passion.

What if like a brilliant woman kind of threw herself in your path, right?

Because talking on a podcast is a little bit like having a blog where you overshare because

people learn everything about you, what you like, what you don't like, what you're wants

and dreams.

So some woman like could pretend to throw herself in your path seemingly accidentally

and then you meet.

She has a Russian accent and probably works for FSB.

No, but whatever, she is who she is.

And then she sort of slides into the conversation like a quote from the idiot, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you're like boom.

It happens.

Yeah.

Right?

But she's not who she, that's all I'll pretend.

And so you very quickly could fall in love with her and she's going to turn out to like

enjoy the game of destroying your life.

Yep.

You know, that or it's the love of my life.

It could be, but not if she did all those things intentionally.

But you don't really know, but you have to then pay attention to, that's the dark aspect

here you mentioned blog.

Like I love when people have like stuff about themselves online because you get to really

learn.

I mean, I'm a fan of podcasts.

I'm a fan of people.

I love learning about them, the personal stuff and so on, hopefully for good reasons.

So the person you can, people you connect with the good ones are the ones that are going

to be very sort of empathetic and the bad ones are the ones that are going to be fake

empathetic.

Like they're going to learn everything about you and use you to manipulate you as opposed

to learn everything about you to fall deeper in love with you as a friend or as a romantic

partner.

Or like genuine curiosity.

Yeah.

Genuine curiosity.

Like there's something you're drawing.

Imagine your dog Leon had a blog after, oh yeah, he does now.

Yeah, that's true.

He kind of does.

Yeah.

When you met him, right?

Then you'd be like, what is this?

What is there that's pulling me towards this creature, this entity?

Like what is there?

And it'd be fascinating to learn more and then you fall in love with the details, not

just with some kind of ethereal thing.

Yeah.

You don't know.

Yeah.

I think one of them actually is somebody who doesn't have that kind of, I mean, plenty

of people are private and they don't put stuff out about themselves online for all kinds

of very valid reasons.

But somebody who does share a lot about themselves personally is, maybe there's examples, but

it's probably not a sociopath if they're sharing all kinds of.

Sure, sure.

But on the other side, when you meet people, yeah, I still like the falling in love because

the red flags, whether you see them early or later, it doesn't matter.

I'd rather see the red flags right away.

I go in hard intensely to clarify it, but going hard, I mean, no small talk.

Just get to know a person.

Get to know quickly.

Get to know the person, challenge.

Travel with them.

Travel with them is a really powerful one, road trip from hell or not.

Go on a road trip and find out if it's a road trip from hell, yeah.

But you might.

So there was somebody I was in it.

This is also a male perspective.

Destructive relationship with where we had already fallen in love and then went for the

first trip in a situation where we had to borrow, I guess he was still sharing his car

with his ex wife, so we had to go to the garage to pick up the car to go on this little trip.

So you literally baggage the egg.

Yeah.

Wow.

But something happened where the garage attendant was like wanted more identification and it

was a pain in the ass.

Anyway, this guy was so unbelievably rude to the garage attendant, like just nasty and

I was completely shocked and disturbed and we got in the car for this long car ride and

I was like not saying anything and really shocked and then he noticed that and was very

concerned and I explained, you know, like I just, I never, I would never treat somebody

that way and then he pretended to get incredibly upset and to feel horrible and remorseful

about it and it was like all we talked about for the next few hours.

And then I kind of thought like, well, okay, you know, I can get over that and then the

relationship continued and it was a dark and destructive one, whereas, you know, had I

seen him behave that way before we were in a relationship, I would have known to back

away.

Okay.

But the lesson, you could still walk away.

You could still walk away.

No, you can't.

Well, I could have walked away at any point with, I call him Mr. Fox because it's sort

of depersonalizes him, but I could have walked away from him at any point in time, but that's

the whole, that's kind of the whole point of what they do and the whole reason why people

don't understand it.

I mean, it's like being in a cult of one.

So the people who've been in cults and gotten out, we understand each other very well because

the same psychology was used, the same psychological tactics were used on us.

And then we experienced the same thing on the other side of it, which is it's hard for

us to understand and it's hard for other people to understand.

And everybody's saying that would never happen to me or they're saying, I don't get it because

you're smart.

How could you let that happen?

Why didn't you leave?

Why didn't you walk away?

And on the other side of it, we don't have the answers or it takes a really long time

of self reflection and reading and investigation to try and figure out how it is that it happened

and why didn't we walk away?

No, it's definitely hard at every level.

And I just think that even for more subtle sort of not outrageously toxic relationships

but like normal toxic, not normal, like a little bit toxic relationship.

There are some people that kind of thrive on conflict.

Yeah, but you could just still just be self aware.

Like I think you've talked about, give yourself time to think about the red flags and like

I pride myself on being able to walk away.

You have to think like, is this the kind of thing I can live with in friendship and business

partners and because the little things that bother you turn out to be big things down

the line.

Yeah, so it could be less romantic, but I feel like getting to know somebody slowly

over time is...

Yeah, it's the smarter thing.

It's safer.

Fuck it though.

But that's again my Russian slash Ukrainian male perspective.

Anyway, so meeting Mr. Fox, Anthony.

That's a chapter title in my book, meeting Mr. Fox.

Meeting Mr. Fox.

So you're working on a book about this.

I'm almost done.

It's taken a really long time.

Can you define almost done?

Because I've said that it's like when people say like they're leaving, like I'm almost

in the car and they're not really, they haven't even started the showering yet or something.

So...

Yeah, I think I probably need some like therapist to work with me on this.

Are you usually late to things?

No.

Okay.

I'm usually, oh, I sent you a text message because I was early when I got here.

And I said that because of, I think I said my crippling fear of being late, I'm like

always early.

So I'm loitering outside like a weirdo, but glad to come in if it's not too early.

The crippling fear of being late makes me chronically early and today's no exception.

Yeah, it's interesting.

So I got here before I rang the bell.

Yep.

I was outside for a little while.

I was just killing time going, I'm way too early, but it's really hot out.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah, because I always air, like I was very early to the airport and then I had all this

time to kill.

But that's fine with me because that's actually time I appreciate because I can write things

or, you know, I worked on my book draft on the airplane, mostly editing, which it needs

a lot because it's really long.

It's in word count.

So all the things are already completed and you're just editing down?

No, I wish it's, it's, it's in five parts and I've written one through four and five,

part five is like the chapters are all there, but some of them are messy.

Some of them are, or some of them are just like a few paragraphs.

Some of them are just notes.

Some of them are done.

So I am kind of almost, it's like five parts and part five is not quite finished.

What did you?

But I've been editing along the way.

So this is going to come out in 2023, I think you mentioned.

So it won't come out for a bit or we'll figure it out.

What have you learned about yourself from putting some of these things down on paper?

What's like the darkest thing you've realized about yourself?

From writing?

The darkest, well, one of the things that was fascinating is reading through all of

our, the correspondence between him and me that I was able to find, because he deleted

all our emails, but he, he didn't, I think he thought he deleted all of our G chats,

but he didn't.

Well, so he had access to your email, he deleted on that side too.

And he deleted, yeah, he had access to my email most of the time.

And then at the end was also emailing people as me, which was incredibly mortifying to

come home and then get back into my old email and find that.

And I think he was also texting people as me, and those I'll never know unless somebody

brings it to my attention, because after a certain date in 2015, he had my phone and

he had exclusive access to my phone and email.

So I wasn't looking at it until I got out, until after we were arrested, and I was out

on bail on my sisters, and it took me a long time to get back into my Gmail because I had

to verify who I am, and I never got my phone back, so I don't know what he texted to other

people as me after that time.

But anyway, I was able to recover a lot of our G chats, which we use that, I don't know

why people don't use it anymore, but it used to be a thing.

Yeah.

It was like, if you work with people and you use Gmail, it's a really easy way to just

message back and forth.

It's a chat client within Google, but I think Google shut it down already right now.

I think it's still there.

Okay.

I don't know.

And nobody, I used to talk to people on there, and nobody talked to me anymore, and so I

rather...

I watch you.

Thank you.

I just, I don't, yeah.

People don't love Google social products for some reason.

The social network they tried several times, Google Plus, it just dies out.

Something about it.

Like when Microsoft tries to do stuff, it just doesn't feel right.

Anyway, it is very lonely, and that Google chat window makes total sense though.

Anyway, so that was still there, so you're reading through them.

So finding, being able to go back and read, and then I kept finding like more layers of

stuff, and including a journal that I didn't find the DA, the prosecutor found.

Written by...

Me, my journal that I thought he'd thrown away.

I didn't know it existed.

So somehow we still had it, and they found my journal, which was for the year 2014,

in the very beginning of 2015.

This is after you got, this is in the middle of it.

It was in the middle of it, yeah.

So reading that was fascinating.

Yeah, what's some interesting things there?

Was it, was your mind completely detached?

It was weird because, no.

Were you concerned?

Were you in love?

Were you afraid?

I was not in love.

I was afraid.

I definitely write repeatedly in there that I'm afraid of him.

I also write repeatedly things like, I don't know what's going on, like please let this

be over, please let this be over, please let this be over.

And then in a sort of, if I try to remove myself and look at it as if I was a different

person, it's sort of heartbreaking because I was trying so hard to be positive.

And that didn't work out, you know, I was trying to be positive.

So when I, it turned up later in the process and my lawyer at the time called or something

and said, you know, the DA has your, or the prosecutor, they have your journal, I haven't

read it yet, but as soon as I get a PDF copy, I'll send it to you.

So that was sort of weird to think that everybody's reading my journal, which, you know, you

don't write it thinking people are going to read, unless you're like a historical person

and then later on you think people are going to print from it.

But you know, nobody's writing a journal.

I can just imagine like a, like a 14 year old thinking they're going to be a historical

person.

Right.

Well, no, I mean, like, you know, presidents who keep journals and then they're later

on.

Sure.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah.

So you write it, you don't think anybody's going to read it.

And so that was a weird feeling.

And then also just not knowing, having, you know, not remembering what I wrote.

So I think it was the next day I got, she sent me a PDF copy of it and I read it really

quickly because I could read my own.

It was a PDF, so it was like Xeroxes of the pages, so it was in my own handwriting, which

I could read really fast because even though it's messy, I wrote it so I could read it

really fast.

And I read the whole thing and was crying because I thought, okay, finally, like, surely

nobody could read this and think that I intended to commit crimes.

And so I thought, like, I thought that journal was just going to fully exonerate me and they

would like, you know, if not drop the charges, like it would just be like, okay, well, you

know, some bad things happened, you're responsible, you know, here's probation.

But it didn't seem to make any difference, which was strange.

But anyway, so the journal and then also finding all of the correspondence between,

not all of the correspondence between him and me, but the G chat correspondence between

him and me, to me, so, you know, all of that in its entire, like, I wish that everything

could have been kind of put out there as evidence, like the more they turned up the

better for me because I wanted them to see everything.

And there are just so many examples in the correspondence between him and me where he's,