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Somebody got to cue me or do I cue myself? Cue yourself. Okay. Hey there, everybody. We are back with another episode of Let's Talk Off Camera. So let's get talking. We'll be back.
Now listen to this. Today we are joined by actor, writer, podcaster, music producer, fierce advocate for women, Jamila Jamil. And in addition to her roles on The Good Place and She-Hulk, she's built an online community called I Weigh that's all about mental health, inclusivity, and challenging societal norms and
she's a very active person. Yeah. I mean, she's, I didn't know, I'm going to be honest. I didn't know much about her. I started, you know, reading about her and watching videos of her and she's, she's really going out there and talking about her, you know, she's going to talk to you about it, but like her eating disorder and how that affected her, you know, mental health. And it, it touched such a nerve for me. I started telling you about it, but yeah,
I went through this in my 20s. What happened was I got home from college, and I'm going to be honest, someone I love who's very near and dear to me made a comment about my weight. And...
It just kind of hit me. It was like one of those things that they said it and it just kind of struck a nerve with me and I couldn't let it go. And so I became started become very, you know, cognizant of like what I was eating and I started restricting foods and doing all of that. And then my mom, which I've talked to you about, had a mental illness and it really started getting much worse around that time. And so I
I had, I felt like such a lack of control with her. Like it was such a rollercoaster ride being her daughter at the time. And so my only way of like controlling things, which I didn't even realize that, you know, I have this now I understand it, but the only way of controlling things was I started controlling E.
I, you know, was working out all the time and as restrictive as I was being and I would run, run, run, strict as I was being, I would start, I started doing this crazy thing. Like anyone who knows me knows that I was like this tasty delight girl. I would get tasty, tasty delight every night. I remember you. I would get pints of tasty delight. But it's because tasty delight was the easiest thing to throw up afterwards.
Oh my God. So like, I loved the taste of it going down. It's like ice cream, you know, you're eating ice cream, but then it was so easily. So you would throw up. I would throw up tasty delight. And it was like, I would eat pints and pints of tasty delight just to have that,
it was such a crazy disorder at the time. I would eat that, feel so satisfied by it and then get rid of it. And it wasn't until... Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. And I was so restrictive with everything else. Like it made no sense because I would only eat egg whites. I would only eat, you know, chicken that was boiled, but then I would have all this tasty delight. And I don't think my dad knew about it. I don't, I really hid this quite well.
Uh-huh. I didn't know about it. Yeah. I mean, it was... I knew you girls were into Tasty Delight. There was a lot of conversations about it in the production office. But they weren't doing the same thing I was doing. No, I know that. But I would run, run, run, you know, like six miles and then I would go get a pint of Tasty Delight and...
eat that. So how did you, how did you gain control of that? Cause I, I know, I know so much about it when you, when you talk to people that have had disordered eating, it's always about control. Like they want to control something. So what happened was, you know, I started to want to get pregnant and we started to want to start a family. Um,
went off the pill and did not get my period. Like that was not happening. So I totally screwed up my menstrual cycle. And for months and months and months, I wasn't getting my period. And I had to take all these drugs to get, to even get pregnant. And it was just kind of this thing where I said to myself,
this isn't about me anymore. This is about, I'm bringing another person into this world and I need to create the healthiest environment for this person and in my body. And so I became, became hyper vigilant about eating healthy and about putting enough calories in me and about making sure everything was balanced. And it became all about, you know, at the time Luke was
and getting healthy for him and, you know, trying to strike that balance. And, uh, that's how, that's kind of how I got out of it. I, I also, you know, at the time my mom who had been thin her whole life, um,
when she was really struggling with her mental illness, she put on a ton of weight. And so I think I've always had this really fucked up thought that weight signals something being out of control or weight is something that is, you know, it's bad.
And so I think I've always put that stigma on it and it's, it's terrible, you know, and I, I've, I've really tried to take myself out of that whole thought process, but it's just, it's, it's something that's always been with me, you know, but I, I've, I've, I've never gone back to those habits. I've,
been healthy ever since. Thank God. But yeah, but it was just, I mean, and it was, it's funny because I was listening to her talk about it and I'm sure she's going to talk to you about it, but it was something that just made, reminded me that when you do talk about these things, it's, there's always numbers. Like everybody, yeah, I've had that situation or even the way I talk about my mom, like, you know, people have been through stuff.
And so to me, it's always helped me when other people talk to me about stuff and it's always helped me to actually talk about things. So I found it to be so refreshing that she's doing that, especially within this industry, she's in. Right, this industry where nobody talks about anything. This industry beats you up to be thin, right? Right.
When I joined the soap, I was always told that I needed to lose weight. You did. You were so skinny. I was so skinny and I was told I needed to lose weight. They told me all the time because they were like, it's a medium from your face up. But I had like a chubby face and I still do. I will always – here's what I've learned. I will always have a chubby face. Guess what? I have a round head and a big face and that's just the way it is. And I will always have that.
But I was always told like things, like the most ridiculous, you have to lose 10 pounds off of your face. I go, I don't even know what that means. Do you want me to cut my head off? I don't know how to do that. How would that even take place? Instead of going into the abyss and believing that I was...
not enough enough or too fat or that my face was too fat. I just really, I didn't believe it. And I thought what they were asking of me was impossible. And I wasn't going to try it because I wouldn't even know how to do that. It sounded so strange. And, you know, looking back, I was 19. So you know how much your body changes between the ages of 19 and say 25 or 19 and 30. It's like,
I guess whatever baby fat was on my face sort of evaporated enough where everybody stopped saying that to me one day or they moved on to somebody else maybe. But that was just a thing. That was like a very, that was a thing I think a lot of the,
women were told on the soaps. Probably men too. I don't know, but I'm just, you know, from my own perspective. Yeah. I mean, my life was so chaotic otherwise, so it felt like something I can control. And I think the terrible thing is that I would
constantly people would tell me like, Oh, you look so good. You look so good. So then it further spirals it. So in your head, you're like, Oh, when I'm this weight, I look good. Yeah. But I was already thin. Like I was already thin. I've only known you as a thin person. I've never been a heavy person, you know, at the college 15, whatever. But it's just, it's just one of those things. It really took hold of me and I hid it from everybody and everything. I think that's,
Having Luke and wanting to do something, you know, that wasn't about me really was the catalyst for me. You made that change without therapy? I made it without therapy. Wow. Yeah. She's ready. She's ready? She's ready. She's on the line. Hello, mate. Hello, mate. You look beautiful. Are you in London? I am in London. How are you doing? My daughter lives in London. No way. That's very clever of her. Yes.
So before you logged on and before I logged on, we just went through all of your credits, your accomplishments. But we started talking about I Weigh.
And Jan, our producer who is researching you, you really struck a nerve with her. And she just revealed something to us that none of us really knew before. I kind of knew a little bit, but she just sort of took us on her journey. And she was saying it's because of you that she was really able to have this experience where she's...
shared her journey so we want to thank you for just being a fierce advocate for women of course but all people in the mental health oh thank you i appreciate that tell her i said thanks for saying that she's here oh no i'm here i'm here i was just i told them about i just was uh telling them about an eating disorder i had in my 20s and i was i
decided to share it with them after just reading everything about you and listening to everything you've shared. Oh, thank you, mate. And the lengths she went to hide it, you know, we were all working together at this time this was all happening and I had no idea at all. And to hear that she was living in this personal hellscape was...
to me, really shocking. And I'm curious, did something happen to you? Jan said it started for her when she, I mean. Yeah, someone, first of all, someone I love commented on my weight, which I guess triggered me. But then it was really about control. Like my mom was dealing with mental illness and I just needed to control something in my life. And it became about food and weight and calories. And I was wondering like what started it for you?
For me, what triggered it was until I was about 10 or 11, I was totally oblivious about people's bodies, blissfully so. And I don't think children of this generation have that same luxury. I think now so many of them, I think four years old is the youngest that we're seeing eating disorder patterns in. But I used to push my tummy out further because I thought it was something to be really, really proud of that it was so full of food.
And when I was 11, we had, I think it was our English teacher took over for us. She subbed for our maths teacher and she had to teach us how to collect data for a pie chart. And so she thought it would be a good idea to weigh teenage girls in a classroom in front of other teenage girls so we could collect data about the average weight of
And me being taller and like thicker set than the other girls, I was the heaviest. And it led to instant ridicule and people laughing. And then I went home and told my parents and rather than them tell me something sane, like that's, you know, that's not important. Kids are just mean. They don't even know what they're laughing at. They were like, oh, my God, you are the heaviest in the class. We need to get you on a diet immediately.
So I was launched from the next day into a mostly, you know, that cuppa soup. I don't know if you have the same thing here. It's like powdered soup that you put it in hot water. I was put on a cuppa soup diet where I mostly ate cuppa soup and then was just allowed some meat and vegetables at night at the age of 11. And I developed a really warped relationship with food where
suddenly food was guilt, it was self loathing, it was rebellion, it was joy, it was my secret comfort, it was parenting, it was love, it was hate, it was anything other than just fuel. And I developed a very strained secretive relationship with food. And I also was weighed every day at home after that. And so and I was rewarded, you know, if I'd lost weight, and I was
It was very clear that I was disappointing if I hadn't, you know. And how does that make you feel? I mean, outside of the now –
secretive relationship that you're developing, this unnatural relationship to food, which is so, you know, when you're a little kid, food is like a joyful time usually. It's always, you know, lunch with your friends is fun. Coming home and having a family meal is fun. These are supposed to be the safe times for
So what does that do for you as a child, um,
emotionally with your parents? Well, I realize now that they had their own body image issues and they were fucked up by their parents and so forth, you know, so on and so forth. So it's just a lineage of pain and deprivation. And in their heads, I think that it came from a place of love. I think in their heads, it came from a place of, we don't want you to suffer.
Because you stand out. You know, we don't want you to fit in, you know, and I'm also like, I'm Pakistani and Indian in a country where it's mostly white. I'm in a school that's almost entirely white. And my family were very much so not the kind of people to hold on to our culture. They had done that when they moved over as first generation and they were ridiculed like little girls would hold their nose, you
when my mother would enter a classroom. And, and so they were both so bullied in a very racist time in England in the like sixties, I guess. And so they wanted us, they were very anglified, you know, they didn't teach us. Yeah. They didn't teach us Hindi. They didn't, they spoke it, but they didn't teach it to us. Everything was American music in the house, American TV, uh, and English food. And everyone spoke with, you know, very English accents. My parents,
would code switch around English people to speak in a very English accent. And so, oh, God, hang on. Sorry. It's okay. Can you hear that? No. Ironically, a pizza has just been delivered to my house. It stopped recording for a second there. Can I take a look at my pizza? The irony of this is unbelievable. Albert's on the first flight to London. I'm leaning in.
We should have pizza. Excuse me, where the fuck is our pizza? I don't know. Let's get a pizza. You know, understand, we just decided that we're ordering a pizza because it sounds like such a good idea. Oh, look how good that is. Wow. This is such a hilarious time for a pizza time.
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So let's talk about, since the pizza arrived, let's use this as our pivotal moment. Was there a pivotal moment that caused you to take hold of your life in a positive way? Yeah, and just to round off with my parents, I think it's just, I think that, you know, I could see...
I can see now throughout my life and with me and my brother that they just wanted us to fit in. And thinness is a form of assimilation, especially for women. And I think that it's so, I'd never planned on being in the show business industry. And I can't think of a worse industry for me to have entered with a history of eating disorders, given that, again, to assimilate.
You're supposed to be thin unless you want your entire identity to be the fact that you stand out for not being thin. And for that to be the only thing we talk about, like Kate Winslet, who's tiny in the Titanic, Renée Zellweger, tiny in Bridget Jones's Diary, all these different films in which like the thing that we knew those women for was the fact that they were curvy. I mean, Giselle, the boobs from Brazil, just...
just known as the curviest model on the runway. It was a rail. So it's been really bizarre. We talked about it. Yes, we talked about it for many years that, you know, because Giselle came on our show with the wings. Do you remember the wings? And we were like, oh, the curvy model is coming on our show. This is, I'm going back decades.
She's coming on our show to model the wings. And she walked in this willow of a person and I said, this is the curvy model? Oh my gosh. We were blown away by what we were witnessing because, you know, we are from a generation where the models of the 90s...
actually were, I mean, as thin as they were, they still had like boobs and butts. It was more of an Aphrodite, you know, sort of figure. Yeah, for sure. So I think I stopped starving myself
fully uh when I was 19 but I still didn't eat a proper meal until I was 30 thereabouts I had um EMDR therapy eye movement desensitization reprocessing therapy you know where you can break thought patterns um and I highly recommend it to anyone who struggles with food associations and I
I was about to move to America and I just didn't want to take my demons with me to my new life. I wanted to leave them in my twenties because I'd been obsessed with food to the point where it had made me such an exhausted, boring, navel-gazing, obsessive person. And I was just sick of it. It took up so much room in my brain.
Even when I was embracing body positivity, I still couldn't get the food obsession out of my head. And so I did EMDR therapy. I moved to America and have been in recovery ever since. And I eat full meals and I eat three times a day and I eat intuitively. So I don't follow any kind of restrictive diet. And I have just...
learned that the world doesn't end when you eat a full meal. And now I don't remember the calorie content of anything. And that's amazing because I used to be an encyclopedia of that. And I, you know, I would only eat my foods very separate so that I knew how many calories were in each thing. And now I eat everything kind of, you know, like smushed in a plate together. That sounds, it sounds exhausting. Yeah.
It sounds exhausting. It's a full-time job. My TV career was my part-time job. My full-time career was staying thin. Jesus. And that was just so depressing. And I thought I was the only one and that everyone else was naturally thin because you remember what it was like. Everyone was lying that they eat so much. Like, there's nothing more eye-rolly even than an actress ordering a pizza during a podcast. Like, I'm not aware of how that looks.
But I did starve myself for 20 years. So I'm going to eat pizza all the time now. Also, it's like, it's late where you are. It is like beyond, it's beyond dinner time. It's 10, I'm jet lagged and I'm not excusing. I'm not, I'm going to make excuses for myself because I don't need to. But my point is, is that I was in a time where it was like, you know, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie eating giant burgers during the size zero thing. You know, everyone was,
pretending to be eating loads and not doing anything to lose weight. And we're seeing that again now with the skinny shots that everyone's denying that they're on it, but they're all suddenly developing a teenager's metabolism in their forties and fifties. Like it's just, it's a, it's a type of like body gaslighting that was going on. That's now happening again. We were just talking about this on a previous episode that there is this, it's very clear when you see people that have
And by the way, none of these people, in my opinion, had any weight issue whatsoever. But suddenly you see people that were always of an average size and shape suddenly become
almost overnight seem to be half of themselves and then also saying, oh no, I would never take a shot like that. It's so bad for you. It's so bad for your health. And I do feel like it is a form of gaslighting and I don't understand the shame behind it. If you want to do that, then at least don't ask us all to not have eyes in our heads.
That's just it. Is that because then you start to think there's something wrong with you. You're like, do I have a quote unquote, slow metabolism? Like why can't I do what everyone else is doing? And you don't realize that we're all just in the same boat and our bodies are actually quite similar. Obviously there are individual nuances, but it,
It was just a tricky time and I just kept it to myself because I didn't know that anyone else was struggling. And when I started the I Weigh movement, which is a social movement around mental health that largely started based on the way that we, you know, it was literally about I Weigh, I-W-E-I-G-H. It was all sparked from a very healthy dose of premenstrual medication.
tension, or whatever it's called, PMS, in the back of my boyfriend's tour bus. And I was online, I'd had to join Instagram to promote The Good Place, which is a TV show I'd just been cast on. They wanted me to promote on socials. And I got Instagram, I clicked on the explore button. And I was like, there are all these pictures of famous women with numbers written across their bodies, but the numbers weren't
how many awards they'd won or their net worth or any of these other gross measurements, but instead was the grossest possible measurement, which is how much they weigh. And once you click on one, then you start being bombarded by the algorithm with loads of these types of pictures of these incredibly accomplished scientists
decorated women just reduced to a number on a scale. And there was zero images of men unless they were MMA fighters with their weight written across their body. And these were all businesswomen. These were entrepreneurs. These were leaders. It was just insane. And so I wrote, I just couldn't believe that 20 years after I'd...
entered into eating disorder culture the same exact rhetoric existed which is that you are only as valuable as the you were only valuable if you take up as little space as possible and so I wrote well I weigh my orgasms and my life experiences and my career and my relationships and my friends and my mistakes I weigh the sum of my motherfucking parts and
And it just went viral. And it went so viral that it stayed viral for about three years to the point where then I turned it into a podcast. I turned it into its own Instagram page, a website, content, documentaries. And so I've been, I'm now six years, I think, in.
Wow.
Uh, so I'm way behind on the issues of the world. And so people get to learn with me on my podcast. So with all of the, with all of the, um, you know, restrictive eating that you did, did that have ramifications for you health-wise?
Yeah, I took so many laxatives. I'm amazed I even still have an asshole, to be perfectly honest. It's a real trooper. It's a survivor. I took every, any pill or drink or diet that Oprah recommended. I did it. I took it. You know, any...
very low calorie supermodel diet. Um, I fucked up my kidney, my liver, my digestive system, my heart. And most recently I found out that I have destroyed my bone density. Oh,
And I love blaming other people. And I can't blame anyone, really. I can blame society for what it encouraged me to do, but ultimately this one's on me. And I'm so sorry to my body that I have jeopardized my future so severely that
for a beauty standard and to try to fit in with other people. And that's why I'm so annoying publicly about eating disorders and diets, because, you know, there's so much talk about the dangers of being in a bigger body. And there are no talk, there's no talk almost about the dangers of not eating enough, only eating too much.
And I think that's really dangerous because we really don't, we have no idea the way that people's fertility is fucked, the way their long-term health is fucked. We just don't talk about it. And it's an inconvenient truth that the diet industry kind of
And so I want to be someone who reminds people to eat for, don't eat for your waistline now, like eat for your longevity later. You know, I'm looking at you and it's so funny. So I'm going, because our podcast is off camera, so nobody gets to see anything. But if I just met you today, I would say I met the most beautiful woman ever.
She is confident and shiny eyed and shiny haired and bright and open and self-assured and smart and brilliant and gorgeous. Like that is how I would describe you. Like everything about you when I look at you is health.
And the fact that you have so many ramifications from the things you did when you didn't know any better and you didn't know the consequences of it. No one told me. But I can see you beating yourself up for it. And what I'm saying to you is I want you to not beat yourself up for it because you're doing so much good now.
telling younger people the real world consequences of behavior that nobody warns you about.
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm glad for what I've done. I'm just pissed because I'm in pain now and everything's more complicated. And I'm thankfully, you know, I've been eating properly for four or five years, four years maybe, like really, really properly, really fully. And my hair's grown back and my energy's come back and my sex drive has come back and everything is better in my life. And I think I am a less self-sufficient,
I guess I'm just not thinking of myself so much now. I've got more capacity to think of others and now I'm just using every bit of energy I have to warn everyone else. You know, I'm the person screaming at the television begging the woman in the underwear not to go down into the basement and investigate the strange sound. - Were you ever told by any production that you had to lose weight for a role?
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No, I think it was more insidious. It was more of congratulations if I did lose weight and say nothing if I if you know if I was getting bigger or make it feel awkward, make it feel uncomfortable. I, you know, send my sizes ahead of time always because you're supposed to send your measurements.
A lot of people don't realize that. Everything was always a size or two too small. And somehow still I was able to be tricked into believing that it's my responsibility to fit these genes that are too small for the human body that I sent them the measurements of weeks in advance. So that's how it happens. That's how the conditioning often happens. It's rare that you will just explicitly be called fat anymore because it's not the 90s. But there are ways in which it's coded. It's all coded.
And and you you especially as a woman feel as though you are designed to please people. And so when you can see that your weight loss and thinness pleases other people, there's a part of you that thinks, oh, God, that was a shot of dopamine, that praise. I want more of that. I'm going to keep going. And then also you become terrified of what's going to happen if you gain weight. So you just keep going and going and going and going until you're, you know,
your body starts to give up on you. Now in your contracts, it says that you will not allow airbrushing to any of your images. Can you explain that to me? Because I insist on airbrushing. You truly look wonderful. But the reason I don't use airbrushing, I don't want anything that makes me look thinner or younger because I'm going to get bigger and I'm going to get older. And I don't
want that image to compare myself to. It's not this great moral, you know, superiority. It's just that I can't help but compare. That's what our brains are designed to do. You know, we're constantly analysing things. And if I keep seeing this like AI digitally enhanced image of myself looking quote unquote flawless, I'm going to be like,
and ageless forever then i'll i'll be so disappointed when i look in the mirror that's why i think filters are dangerous not only for celebrities to use for other people to see but it's also dangerous for the people using these filters themselves because suddenly these very normal things like bumps in the skin and pores and wrinkles start to feel like some sort of i don't know a
like malfunction on your face and they're not, they're very normal. And I have grown up loving the faces in particularly loving the faces of women as they get older. I think that's when all the character comes in. I love a smile line because it means the woman has smiled. I, I, I want to try my best to resist any form of, of anti-aging cosmetic procedures and,
because I want to look like there's women and I don't think there's anything wrong if you don't have those features and if you choose to be completely smooth but
I'd again, like health risks come with those things. You damage your skin barrier. Like your brain is the most porous bone in your body. Is it a good idea to put Botox or fillers that close to your brain? I don't know. I don't think we have the proper science yet to know decades from now, what the impact of that's going to be for the women or young girls or, you know, people, men who do it. And so I just, I would like to try my best to resist that.
the patriarchal conditioning that my value is gone and that I am invisible when I am older because that is a direct assault on the value of women. We become infinitely more valuable as we become older. We become wiser, more aware, we're able to pass our information down to others. It is an
a deliberate missile against us. But it's deliberate. It's deliberate. We're far too valuable. We're not invaluable. We're too valuable. We're too important and we're too smart as we get older. And that's why we have to be erased. That's why we have to be gotten rid of. That's why we've been given these ridiculous...
these ridiculous tasks of, of not aging and not gaining weight, like fighting time and gravity. Oh, gravity happens. So that we don't, yeah, so that we don't, so that we're not, so that our eye is taken off the ball and then we're not thinking about all the amazing things we can do. And so I, I just, from a purely spiteful place.
I wish to try to fight against that and allow my body and my face to do what they're going to do at last. The worst thing that obsession with a beauty standard takes from you, even worse than health or happiness, is time.
It took so much time for me, time that I could have spent growing so much more than I have at this age. And I guess that's why I'm so tenacious now is because I'm making up for a lot of lost time and I'm making up for a lot of lost meals by ordering pizza. Yeah.
Can you tell me about Move Your Mind? Yes. Okay. So Move Your Mind is a new, it's my newest fight. I like to pick a fight every five years. And my latest one is against the exercise industry. I think the diet industry has infiltrated it, taken over, and is now using its body as a host. And now- The exercise industry. It's funny because I exercise, I take dance class every day and I love it. I feel like-
I mean, I know it's exercise, but I love it. I feel like I get an endorphin rush from that. Do I have disordered exercise? No.
No, no, it's important to exercise. It's important to exercise every single day. It's so vital for your brain function, for your cognitive function, for your heart health, for your sleep, for your stress levels. You think clearer, your memory improves. Exercise is pivotal, but so much of exercise has become bastardized and turned into a function of weight loss.
And so people either sometimes become obsessive about exercise and some people don't exercise at all because they feel so far away from their quote unquote goal weight or goal body that they don't bother. Also exercise spaces are incredibly alienating. I myself have found exercise spaces alienating. All the pictures, everyone's super ripped. All the athletes on the television and in the, you know, athleisure clothing are, you know, even ones with disabilities are the fastest, hottest, coolest, best.
most impressive people on earth. There's, there's nothing that there's no real emphasis beyond the occasional. Yeah, it's good for my mental health. There's no emphasis on what it is neurologically doing to you to move your body every day. And I think around the eighties, when, when office culture came in, uh,
people were sitting down suddenly for 12 to 14 hours a day, which is very, very bad for your health. And so then came in this kind of gym culture of go and do a ballistic hour of exercise. And then it started to turn into a beauty and body ideal over the coming years and a way to burn calories. And that's when it became really dangerous because now so many people don't move their bodies at all because they think it's just the thin fit person's world. And it's not.
And so I've started a company where we put on events around the world where we invite people to come and exercise with us and everything's pink and it's a disco ball. And we have trainers from every different background and people with disabilities and people in bigger bodies and people of different races, people who look like you leading the classes, expert, you know, certified trainers. And we don't have diet food at the event. We have bagels, we have cake, we have the opposite of diet culture everywhere.
we're just trying to create safe spaces for exercise and people, everyone who came to the event, it started at 12 and there's loads of different classes and panels and everyone leaves at six and everyone stayed for the entire day. We thought people would dip in and out and everyone cried at the end because it was the first time they'd felt genuinely, genuinely free and genuinely like the exercise wasn't about weight loss. Like it was just about community and fun and
and freedom and people who'd never danced before were dancing and people in wheelchairs were dancing. And so I realized as I stood there, I was like, this is officially the most rewarding day of my career and my life where I finally given something more than what I've taken.
And that has led into now a whole company that I'm focusing my time on and taking a step back. I've been taking a step back from acting to work on this. And so we have another event. This is our first one in America. It's happening in New York on the 20th of May. You're very much so invited. And we are we're trying to take a different spin on it this time, which is getting people to walk together.
Walking is so pivotal. The benefits of walking are so exponential and it is so natural to us to be able to walk and move around for our well-being. But women have got only the daylight hours to be able to go for a fucking walk without...
uh, feeling like getting home safe is a privilege and not a right. And so most women I know just don't walk. They don't even walk their dogs late at night. And, uh, the whole time you are walking, the whole point is to not be stressed when I'm walking at night. I feel absolutely terrified because I've got my, my fingers are, you know, uh,
hurting because my keys are, you know, that I'm keeping between my fingers like some sort of shit Wolverine, you know, the digging in and I'm walking faster. I'm looking around me constantly. I'm not able to listen to a podcast or listen to music without worrying that it'll be my fault that I didn't hear some creeps footsteps behind me. And so I would love to try to introduce the idea of walking clubs.
back for women in particular and so this event is for everyone of course but it is mostly about the fact that women don't feel safe to walk at night so we're hosting a panel with me and a member of the secret service uh evie evie porus and she's going to talk to us about our safety give us tips talk to us about this epidemic of violence from men towards women and she's going to give us
a few self-defense tips of ways that we would immediately be able to. And she's a tiny, beautiful little blonde woman who's able to kick anyone's ass. And she's going to give us some tips and then we're all going to go out all hyped up on rage and self-defense speak and walk in the hundreds to go there. We are so going. This is my day. Through the streets of New York. Yes.
And so that's really exciting. Like this is our reality. And then people are like, women are crazy. Of course they're fucking crazy. When you learn the impact of cortisol on the brain and the body, like you understand that we are fried by the time we are 13 years old. 100%.
I'm a big walker and I walk in Central Park constantly, all the time. And it's so funny. I just sort of forget because I am so... Like, I get hopped up on rage and I will go into the park thinking that, come for me, I will take you down. But I...
That's sort of my functioning state in New York as a woman in general. And it's funny when you try to explain it to... It's not amazing for your nervous system. No, but you kind of... But I see where you're coming from. I'll try to explain it to a friend of mine. We were talking about being in this club in the 90s. Before we knew each other, a friend of mine and I were in the same club on the same night, the night of the great snowstorm in the 90s. It was 96. 96.
and New York City had this massive snowstorm. And he was talking about how he picked up this strange guy that he met at the club and they went back to his place. And I said to him, oh my God, you went back to, weren't you afraid that you were going to be raped or murdered? And he was like, no, what are you talking about? I hooked up with the guy. I wanted to take him home. And I said, that is something that does not occur to women ever.
because even back then, it was inconceivable to pick up a stranger at a club and take them home. - This is this viral conversation, right? Would you rather be left alone in the woods with a bear or with a man? And overwhelmingly, we've all chosen a bear
For many reasons, partially statistically, a bear is less likely to kill a woman. It's, I think it's virtually impossible for that bear to want to rape that woman. And then the woman, if she's attacked by the bear, if she survives, won't be asked, well, what were you wearing? What did you do to lead him on? Like, this is our reality. And I think men are only just starting to maybe understand that. But the way I try to explain it to my, you know, I live with a lot of guys, I live with flatmates, um,
even though I am 40 soon, but I enjoy it. I said to them, I was like, walking through jail is the only way you could feel as vulnerable as I feel walking through the street at night.
Because that's where the threat of sexual violence is very prevalent for them. And I think it was Dave Chappelle or someone who said that walking through, I think, you know, a very impoverished area with $20,000 in your pocket is like walking anywhere with a pussy, to put it in his charming words. But he's not wrong. No, he's not wrong. He's not wrong about that. He's 100% right.
And that extra level, you know, like the worst violent statistics are obviously that men are the ones most likely to be hurt because they're facing violence from other men. But also men are outside at night more than we are.
There's a reason. There's a reason for that. Yeah. With the amount of the tax that we have to spend, you know, on just getting home safe. And it's something that just doesn't, it just doesn't, it's not something that might even occurs to my male friends. Every time Lola's in a cab or an Uber in London, she calls me regardless of what time it is for me. She calls me and I'm happy to take the call because we sit on the phone and she talks with me like I'm an active person that's at her next stop waiting for her.
You know, so we sit and talk on the phone until she gets home because I'm just always so nervous as a young 22-year-old girl, you
I'm very nervous about her. In the city, I'm nervous about her. And she's so lucky that you do that. But these are the kind of things that we do all of the time. We just don't think about the impact on our mental health of not being able to have that freedom to just walk off the day, to go for a little stroll after a fight with your loved one. Like, it's so hard. I've done some really, really embarrassing things to try to secure my safety. I think one of them, the most embarrassing was...
I run as though I'm already being chased. Looking behind me. Yes. So that a man who sees me will think, someone's already got that one. Yes, there's already got that one. Which is so fucking dark. No, but that's actually a really good plan. It is really good. It is really effective. But then one time I took that way too far and I've lived in shame ever since. But I...
I turned the corner, it's at Sweetser and the L'Empre in LA, which is like a kind of, it's a really nice area, but it's very, very deserted and it's off sunset. And I could see five guys standing outside a car together talking. They're sort of around my age,
But they might be perfectly lovely men. I have no idea. The problem is, it's not that all men are dangerous or all men are rapists or all men are, you know, misogynist or anything. It's just that we don't know which one's going to be the murderer or rapist. So therefore, we're always having to kind of gamble in our heads. And so I decide to, I'm like, okay, here we go. It's time to put on the performance of being chased. So I start running, looking behind me. And then I run right up to them and I say,
coming and they all run away and they haven't
They haven't asked me what's coming. They didn't even look to find out. I just said it's coming. And I guess Los Angeles is in a place where it's like very movie focused. They just had, everyone had a sense of what it might be. And they ran off and I ruined their night. You know, I scared the shit out of them. And I got home. You cleared a path. You cleared a path. But I got into my doorway. You know, so. You're a highlander in West Hollywood.
Yes, that's true. It could have been five men in West Hollywood around a car just innocently picking each other up. Totally. It just could have been five gay men who were not remotely interested in me. We were in WeHo.
I just, I wasn't going to take my chances. And it was just such a long road. You can't be too safe, Albert. The reason I did it is that it was just such a long road. And I was like, I can't believably be this far ahead of an attacker. You know, like there's no one behind me now. So I have to...
I have to make it. I have to make them. I have to amp up the story. So they think that I'm running from, you know, some sort of a legitimate monster. And the best thing is that, you know, we're all children and they believed me and they ran for their fucking lives. I'm going to try that tomorrow. The construction on the street here is so endless. I'm just going to say it's coming and see if they take off running so I can maybe get to work on time.
That would be nice. So it's honestly, it's really fun. You know, we're such fans of yours here, but now I...
I am such a bigger fan of yours now that I've had this conversation. Thank you so much for joining our humble podcast. Now, listen, don't forget, dear listeners, Jamila has a podcast too. I'm not the only one with a podcast, you know, Jan. You're not. It's called I Weigh, W-E-I-G-H, I Weigh. Jamila Jamil, thank you so much for being here. Delightful to talk to you. Bye. Enjoy your pizza, finally.
Thank you. I'm so excited. Oh my God, I'm going to pop it in the oven. I'll be fine. Is our pizza here yet? Yeah, so that's it. That's all you get for today. Don't forget to tell your friends to listen and follow the latest episodes of Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to review us and give us five stars. That is mandatory. So don't forget to do that and we'll talk to you all off camera next week. Bye everybody. Yay!
Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa is a production of Melojo Productions with help from Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is Follow Me from APM Music. From Melojo, our team is Kelly Ripa, Mark Hensuelos, Albert Bianchini, Jan Chalet, Devin Schneider, Michael Halpern, Jacob Small, Roz Therrien, Seth Gronquist, and Julia Desch.
from Goat Rodeo. Our team is Cara Shillen, Megan Nadolski, Max Johnston, Isabel Kirby McGowan, and Rebecca Seidel. Additional sound design by Terrence Bernardo. This show is powered by Stitcher.
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