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Unlocked guys. I'm so excited to have Aaron Singerman with me today. I'm very excited to be here Thank you for having me on the show. Of course, y'all he's gonna act like this is his first time so they're like it's my first time Okay, so
Redcon1. Yes. It's funny because, and now everyone that I've spoken to knows what Redcon1 is. I was just out of the loop. I met you and then I became familiar with Redcon1. Now you know. Now you know it all. Yeah. So tell us what Redcon1 is. Redcon1 is my sports supplement company. So we sell everything from like protein powder to creatine, ready to drink drinks, canned energy now.
and also gyms. So Redcon gyms, I have two, one here in Nashville and then one in Boca Raton, Florida. In Redcon one, the actual business is based in Boca Raton, but I also have warehouses and offices here in Nashville. And we're sold all over the place from Walmart to GNC and Vitamin Shoppe and 100 countries worldwide, Amazon, United States military, Dick's Sporting Goods, everywhere. That's awesome. I will say, that's one thing that I loved because you had sent
I sent you a lot. A ton of stuff to my house. I got home and there was like eight boxes full of stuff. And I saw on the back of one of the cans, what is your initiative with the military? So yeah. So Redcon1 means from the very beginning, Redcon1 is a military lingo or jargon. This means the highest state of military preparedness or military readiness. Okay. And I love that for a name because it really works for everybody. Yeah.
Whether you're a soccer mom or a Navy SEAL or a bodybuilder, who doesn't want to be at the highest state of readiness? So it really applied for everybody. But the idea of the brand has always been from the very beginning to support the United States military. We're very pro-military, pro-America, very patriotic company. And so one of the things that we've always done is donate to good causes.
I own a run, a foundation called the Red Cohen Foundation that makes a difference in military service member or the family of service members, Gold Star families if they lost somebody in combat. We do something to try to make a difference in the lives of one of these individuals or their families.
Every month, but also we donate to all kinds of different military causes And so the Gary Sinise Foundation is what we're doing currently with the can energy So forever every can we sell a nickel of the can which sounds like not that much but ends up being a lot It's a lot gets donated to that particular foundation. That's amazing. Yeah, so yeah, that's always been a priority of mine and of the brand and
When you start any kind of company, you need to have a differentiating factor. I think when you build a business, there needs to be something different about you. Why would they buy Redcon1? Why would you support my brand over somebody else's if there's a million to choose from? Exactly. So how did it come about?
How did it come about? So I've been in the bodybuilding and fitness industry since my late 20s. Okay. And I love bodybuilding and fitness, and I decided to follow my passion
in by basically doing bodybuilding, but being a tall, skinny guy by nature, I didn't have like the genetics to be a pro bodybuilder, be Mr. Olympia, which is in retrospect, you really don't make any money as a provider. Yeah, we talk. This is not a lot of money in this.
But I thought, you know, there's probably other things I could do surrounding the world of bodybuilding and fitness that would make some money. Because you were very much into business, like from a very young age, you were like, wanted to be successful. I naturally have an entrepreneurial spirit for sure. Like I've always been, even when I like have casual conversations, me, you talk about something or whatever, sitting down talking, I like my business mind, it happens like,
automatically, even when it's like not not necessarily appropriate. I'm starting to think of like the angles or the. For sure. Yeah. And that's always been like that. But I was very distracted as a young man. You know, I did drugs. I had a real bad drug problem for my younger years, really from the time that I was like right out of high school till the time I was like late late twenties, twenty seven. So I really got off of drugs. And when I got off of drugs,
I realized that, you know, I didn't have a lot of things that I really loved because I try to figure out like, you know, the U.S. here, you know, if you find your passion, you never work a day in your life or all this. And I wanted to do something like that. And all I could think of that was passionate about was bodybuilding. But I'm not going to be a pro bodybuilder. It's not just not in the cards. So finding something that made sense that I was able to take all my energy and effort and put into that.
Was very lucky to have one thing because most people it's tough to even think of one Yeah, you know so I put everything that I had like the kind of obsessive-compulsive person that I am into figuring out what that thing is and making money doing it and and that led me to the world of kind of journalism of bodybuilding and fitness where I covered bodybuilding and fitness
I first started with a podcast. It was very popular. No way. This actually is not my first time. I was being an asshole. I'm sorry. So I had a podcast and it got really popular and it led me to another opportunity to actually go around the world interviewing people.
for for bodybuilding fitness no way yeah so i would travel literally all over the place to go to bodybuilding shows and fitness conventions and expos to interview people and i would you know be out there and literally you know with a microphone interviewing the winners of contests or fitness celebrities and then i would actually especially in the beginning i would edit my own videos i would put them up onto the website that i work for a company called rx muscle no way i'm learning
- I'm teaching all new things. - I know, I'm teaching you. I'm just talking to you the whole story in the background. - Thank God. - Yeah, so at our- - So you weren't always difficult. - I wasn't always difficult? - You weren't always difficult.
You like actually it's been a little difficult. Okay Continue so I I worked for this company arcs muscle I I worked my butt off and eventually I became the editor and the chief of the site Okay, it was a multimedia bodybuilding fitness website. And so I became the the top guy at the site during that period of time I got married and got pregnant my wife got pregnant and I
And I realized that I was not going to provide for a family doing this. You know, I was I loved what I was doing. I was making like sixty five thousand dollars a year, something like that. And I was like, you know, that like what a great thing to make money and pay your bills doing what you love.
It's not going to be enough. And so I started really hustling and I turned on that entrepreneurial spirit like 100 percent and focused that obsessiveness instead of like I did to get into the world by building. I use that to figure out how to make money. Yeah. And I realized I had like like I'm really good at making money.
And it's the truth. You can sell just about anything. It's the truth. So I started right there in the beginning selling advertising for that same site and I was getting 10 percent commission. So quickly I was making a few hundred thousand dollars on top of the salary just selling advertising. Wow. And then and then I started doing marketing and helping supplement companies sell their products better. And so it ended up being where I went from making sixty five thousand to about a million bucks a year very, very quickly.
Like out of out of just out of desperation to figure out how to. How to provide. How to provide. And I realized I really liked it. But you also set yourself to a very high standard. Yes. Like I feel like you are very much a performer. Yeah. And that's where like we have that in common that.
Not that you're not grateful, but enough is never enough. Like you can always do better. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. 100%. I think, look, it's one thing to be like proud and grateful. It's another thing to be satisfied. And if you're satisfied, that means you're done. There's no more. You're good. You're good where you're at. Yeah. And I think that if you really want to reach a kind of –
If you're ever going to reach an extreme level of success, the being satisfied can't be a thing. Yeah. So no, it's like a I feel like that's almost like a genetic component. Some people have that simple down 100%. I had a great sales guy that worked for me for a while back in a different business. Really great guy. And he was making $12,000 a month selling. And I remember we had a conversation because he stopped like progressing. Yeah. And I sat down and I said, Hey man, like what's going on? And he's I'm doing really good and make it $12,000 a month.
And I was like, uh-huh, yeah, you really came out of nowhere and started kicking butt, but, like, now what? He's like, this is really all that I need to be okay. Like, I'm good with this. And I said, all right, so this is a warning. If you continue to get $12,000 a month, you're not going to stay here anymore. And...
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He was like, "What?" And he kind of stayed around and ended up firing him. Wow. Because you can't be okay. Like, you can't work for me and just be like, "I'm good with this. I don't need it anymore." Not if you're a sales guy anyway.
Well, and too, though, I feel like you also make that very clear at the beginning. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's no surprises. No, we can't. If you're working, if you have a goal like that, a job that's goal-oriented, and you hit the number, the number has to move, right? The bar has to go further. It can't be like, well, that's it. For sure. So for me, in my life, my bar is always moving. So, you know, and that could be something where I'm really number-based. I'm, like, super motivated by numbers.
But the numbers, a lot of times it's just almost like a scoreboard that I'm keeping track of 'cause how else are you gonna, what would the barometer be if you don't have a number or a goal? So I'm super duper goal oriented and I'm also moving the bar all the time. - Okay, so now we look at your life.
for all intents, like all intents, what is it? - Intents and purposes? - Yeah. Finish my sentence. For all intents and purposes, your life is like this picture perfect life. Married, kids. - Oh, you mean right then when I earned the money, okay. - In that time. Yeah, no, not now. I know why you laugh now.
Life's still good. I gotta say, life is really good right now. But yes, there's been a lot of drama. There's been some stuff. The American dream of a life. It's like married, kids, successful business. I mean, making great money. Everything's going great. Until...
Well, it was going great for a while. So right around that period of time, 2012, I started a company called Blackstone Labs. So instead of making, helping people drive demand for their business and sell supplements, I realized if I can do this for all these brands, why don't I do my own brand? Yeah. And so me and my best friend, a guy named PJ Braun, joined together. I had the, I basically created this thing and I said, I want to do it with my best friend. Mm-hmm.
Which in retrospect, you know, I would tell people out there and I do tell people this a lot. When you start a business, make sure you have a business partner that's providing real value instead of just saying like, it's such a good idea. Me and your best friends, I want to work together. Yeah. But then you're like, wait, this person is not providing value. And like, what did I do this for? Right. Why did I do it? And so on. If you get a business partner and you see somebody who's either providing money or value and you have to have separate roles.
So anyway, I started this company with him in 2012 and it got really popular really fast. We were the 27th fastest growing privately owned company in the Inc. 500 and number one in health.
and making sports supplements. Kind of like what we're doing now, the difference is it was more like bodybuilder-centric. - Okay. - People who wanted to get an edge, but didn't want to break the law. - Yeah. - And some of the products we made were called prohormones. And what those are are basically kind of steroid-like compounds that aren't actual steroids. When you take it in your body, your body kind of converts them into a steroid-like compound. So real popular with pretty much any gym dude who wants to get big.
And we also made pre-workout and protein and all the other different kind of products as well. But it was a very edgy company. And that's where we were in life at the time. It was a much different time. I was 32, and we had-- You were young. I was in the bodybuilding industry. And so that was the kind of brand we created.
And that kind of brand is cool, but it's very niche. Yeah. You only reach. There's only, how many people really want that? Exactly. Like, you know, the look that these guys are going for, you say it's very unattractive. Yes, it's very unattractive. Grayson is all of,
obsessed with these bodybuilders now. And I'm like, you can't even walk straight because you're so big. Like clothes don't fit you. You look like just like a Ninja Turtle. - I love the Ninja Turtle analogy. The belly with the abs. - Literally. And I'm like this, it's not attractive. So you really do. And that's my own personal preference, not to hate on anyone.
But you really only cater to a certain group of people. Pigeonhole yourself. Yeah. Pigeonhole yourself into a small group of people. Whereas like Redcon1, like I said, we have soccer moms who love Redcon1, who drink the drinks. I want the canned energy and the protein, the ready-to-drink protein to be all over everywhere in the world. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Thank you. I love it. Thank you. You may have converted me from one brand to Redcon1. You better have. I'd be very insulted otherwise. So the supplement that you...
Had it was a did it sell really well? Yes. Yes So we that type of supplement called pro hormones were totally legal. Everything was cool. I
I sold those until there was a law that changed in 2014, December 14th, 2014 called the Designer's Theory Control Act of 2014. And it got signed into law really rapidly where it had, they tried to do it in 2012 and it failed. And so I just figured, we figured it's not going to work again. Nobody cares. It's not like a big deal. Like there's no, like these types of products, nobody was being injured or dying. It wasn't like, like Oxycontin or something like that. Right.
So it happened quickly and it became illegal. So there was a list of 25 compounds on this law. And of the we had six products are like this. They're pro-hormone like products. Four of them on the list. And we immediately discontinued them. We we stopped production of them. We discontinued.
Actually sent out an email to all the customers. We had a memo that all the employees signed explaining like these are not okay. We got a legal opinion from a lawyer asking about the other two because they were similar. And the law was very iffy because it made it sound like anything could be added at any time. Yeah. So we just thought like these are pretty similar. Maybe they'll be added. Maybe they won't. And the lawyer said, look, don't keep a lot of inventory of them. They could become illegal at any time.
And we said, all right. So we discontinued the four. We had two that kept going. In 2015, we discontinued those two as well because we got sued by another brand who said it's called a Lanamak case, where it's illegal competition. And they said that those products were hurting their sales and they weren't legal products. So we ended up discontinuing those products in 2015.
And then I left the business in 2016. I had this huge partnership dispute with my best friend. That's always the worst. My best friend. And we had an investor in the company who came in late who offered us a bunch of money for part of the shares of the business, non-voting rights. But it was enough money that me and PJ had never seen that kind of money before. And we were both like, we'll take this guy in. Well, that guy and PJ got together and basically kicked me out of my own business.
which they really couldn't do because I had 50% of the voting rights. And this is where like the American dream kind of gets...
messy, right? Because you don't want, when you create a company, you know this, you put your blood, sweat and tears into this thing. And I was the one doing a large majority of the work. And then I ended up getting kind of kicked out of my own company. And it was a dramatic thing where I came to the office and the investor brought like security guys. He's worried I was going to freak out. And like, they were like, yeah, they're like, this is literally what he said. Get your shit and get the fuck out.
And I wanted to. It was messy. It was messy. And when I left, I called my lawyer, this guy, Jonathan Bloom. And he told me, Aaron, you can't get kicked out. You have 50 percent of the votes. There's no. So he said, take the day off, go home, relax, you know, and then tomorrow go back to work just like normal. And you're going to force him to negotiate. So I went back to I actually hired an off duty cop I was friends with. And me and Eduardo, my assistant at the time, we bought we bought tasers. And it's just a case for self-defense.
And we came back to the office. And the next day, I sat down at my desk just like normal. Also, too, I think it's really funny that you're such a big guy and you say you got a taser for something else. Oh, yeah. I don't know. PJ was a big guy, too. I didn't know what was going to happen.
So we went, right? And I sat down at my desk and just started working. And I was there at nine. PJ didn't roll into noon, which is typical. Yeah. Came in at noon and was like, what are you doing here? Get the fuck out of here. And I had Manny, the cop, with me. And Manny was like, sorry, he's not leaving. Like, the lease is in Aaron's name, not in your name. If anybody's going to leave, it's going to be you. Yeah. And he was like,
Oh, no. And like, you know what to do. Got the cop there. He was going to get kicked out of the building himself. So he ended up calling his lawyer. And then because of this kind of confrontation at work, we started negotiating and I ended up getting bought out of the business. Yeah.
Which was a blessing in disguise. Oh my God, everything. So one thing about life that I have found for me for sure, and I think probably for everybody else if they are willing to look at it, is that when bad things happen, it's an opportunity. It may not look like it at the time, but there is real opportunity in disaster. And most people look back at the door that was closed behind them, longingly back at the door,
instead of looking for the open door right in front of them. So if I look back at any of these bad things in my life and I can literally go back and list them like this partnership dispute with PJ, which was terrible because as soon as it was done, it felt like I had lost a child. I mean, yeah, I put all this work into a company that now I have nothing to do with.
and it felt in a way like a failure it felt like it felt like uh personalities like ours do not do well with not having perfection it was it was it was it was a lot it was a lot to handle and so you know i was like and i don't get really get depressed i don't get sad too much um fortunately uh but i had a about two days uh the first day the first day that that this all went down i was i was i was sad you know it was like legit sad probably drank too much
Shocker. Yeah. Next day, I spent the next day thinking like, what am I going to do? And one of PJ's texts I always remember, he goes, you have money now. You saved up money. Just go relax on the beach and be with your family. You don't have to work now. And I was like, motherfucker. Because that's the exact opposite of that. Your personality. I don't want to relax on the beach. So I had that day of being like, huh.
What do I do? You know, and then I and then I thought about it and I said like that night, that second night, I was like, I'm going to do another subcontinent. It's going to be way better than Blackstone. And I'm going to make that idiot eat his words. I'm going to show everybody what I'm going to do next.
And so the next morning I woke up super pumped and started hiring people and going looking for offices. And one of the things that I did with the the actual this is like right after I left, I kicked out. Right. And it took a few about a month or so to actually close the deal and have me no longer part of the business.
But one of the things I I negotiated for was that a direct compete usually we get bought out There's not a non-compete right? But he said he was such a cocky dude that I was able to appeal to use my lawyer even his lawyers like no no no I actually had a compete so in my agreement and our separation agreement and then the me being gone was that I was gonna directly compete against the brand and
And so that was like that was all the motivation I needed. Yeah. And that's how Redcon1 got started. Now, where it gets messy is in 2000. That was 2016. Redcon1 takes off. We did in the first year in our very first. It was not even a year. We were doing over a million dollars a month on the website. You know, it was a 15 million dollar business within part of the first year.
That's insane. And so, you know, within the next year, the following year, we were doing more in year two than Blackstone ever did financially in revenue. Yeah. And then now we do more in a month than they did, Blackstone did in their best year. Yeah. But...
That's not where the drama begins now. Yeah, now the real drama begins. And this is, in a way, how we got connected. I guess your story, which I'll get into that after. But state now what happened. The fun stuff. Yeah. So in 2017, Blackstone Labs gets raided. I'm not there anymore. I have nothing to do with it by the FDA. Looking for the supplements that we don't make anymore. Mm-hmm.
They don't find anything. And they came over, the FDA came over to my office after and gave me subpoenas for all kinds of emails and stuff related to Blackstone. And at the time, I was like, well, this can't have anything to do with me. I mean, I'm not there. These products aren't made. I don't even, at that time, I didn't even know what they were even looking for. Because they weren't like transparent with me. They didn't say like, hey, this is what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. They said, hey, we want you to come and interview and talk with us. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
I know enough about that to say, I'm going to have to talk to my lawyer first. Yeah. And I got a criminal lawyer. I was told that I wasn't a target and we kind of forgot about it. It was like I kind of just like went about living my life instead of trying to. You thought, oh, they just want to question me. See what I know. That's it. I didn't even I really once the lawyers talked to them and they told him I wasn't a target or at least that's my lawyer told me I was like, oh, nothing to really worry about. Like, I'm not going to.
Redcon was so exciting at the time and we were building so quickly and rapidly. I wanted to, I did my best to focus all my time and energy on that. Yeah. And family, of course. But I, I'm good at compartmentalizing. So there was always a concern. Like there was always in the back of my head. Oh, I say I've got
the art of... I've mastered the art of compartmentalizing. That's good. That's good. It's really good. It's terrible. But it could also be bad. It's awful. It's a very toxic trait. But continue. But it could be good. I mean, I feel like a lot of my success has been because I've been able... Look, during this period of time, I created a humongous company and did all kinds of cool stuff because I was able to compartmentalize. If I would have been like most people, I would have been...
uh the stress would have killed me yeah and at the end stress did did definitely you know my compartmentalizing broke down and that's where compartmentalizing can be bad yeah because it's still that stuff's still there even if it's in the back it's still percolating back there ready to come out at the worst moments
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Such as the lawyer. You're not a target at this point. I at least, I don't know. I mean, I was, but I didn't know. Yeah. Hanging out, doing my thing, everything going good. 2019, I'm at my chiropractor's office. I remember all this stuff really detailed, right? Yeah. And I started getting phone calls. Every detail. Yeah. When something is traumatic happens. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the details when good stuff happens. You know, I wish I'd remember more of the details of good stuff.
So I put my I put my phone on all my stuff out of my pockets on the on the counter and while he was doing like Adjusting the phone kept vibrating and vibrating and vibrating I get a lot of messages normally but nothing like this something was going on and I remember him doing it and I remember thinking something bad when I felt like something bad something something's going on bad I didn't know what it was
but i felt like something bad is going on so as soon as we finished i looked at my phone and i hadn't talked to my lawyers in like a year ben texted me nothing in like a year and i had all these calls from the lawyers call and text like call me right away you know so as soon as i got out there i called him and i felt like obviously something bad's going on
And they're like, hey, we just got noticed that from the DA's office, from the DOJ, that you're federally indicted. And that they want you to turn yourself in tomorrow morning at the courthouse and they're going to fingerprint you. And I'm like, what am I charged with? And like the charges are all sealed. So we don't know exactly what they are yet. Yeah. And so I had to call my wife and, you know, and obviously that went from me not being like,
Trying not to even think about it to being like an enormous deal. Well, the next day I had to go. Well, yeah, because when a federal indictment comes down, the fight starts. And everybody knew. So obviously they publicized that DOJ puts out on Google and now everybody knows. Because you have a successful business. Everything. Yeah, well, they made a big deal about it. And the accusations when that came out looked terrible. It looked like I was selling steroids and I was laundering money and I was wiring illegal money and I was this...
Kingpin like I was like the Walter White of steroids is what it looked like You read this and like holy shit. It's a bad, dude And and then when you go to court they say United States of America versus Aaron Sanger and you're like that's the worst most defeating in the world and plus like me being me like I love America and like so like I don't want to be the first America like it's a very it was very like
It was a bad feeling, obviously. It was a feeding feeling, like you said. And it was confusing. It was very confused also because I didn't know... I didn't understand how it went from not a target and everything's okay to like, now you're indicted and there's like a million charges and they read it to you. First off, they were nice enough not to break down my door and arrest me, thank God. That would have been bad because I know that happens, you know, where they literally drag you in and the whole thing. Oh, I've heard...
Awful stories about that. Mom and dad were in your same position of being able to go and just go in, do what you need to do, come back out. Yeah, that, and it's funny because it's,
That process was so like not bad that I was like, oh, okay. Legal assistance. It was not bad. But then that's like not reality at all. It's horrible. And that was like, but I went in there, I fingerprinted and then I get in front of the judge and they read off all the charges. And, and then the time that you could have for each one of these charges. And like my mom, my, you know, the people that I brought with me, obviously my wife and a few other people and everybody's crying. And like, you're hearing the numbers and you're like,
Because it adds up. Yeah, well, it adds up. And also, you know, obviously it happens concurrently, which is the thing, you know, it sounds consecutive, like five years, 10 years, 10 years, 15 years, 10 years, five years. And you're like, when we, I remember when we walked off, my mom was like, so he could go to prison for the rest of his life?
And the lawyer's like, no, no, no, no, no. They were not going to charge it like that. There won't be all. And it's like it was just like a lot to hear, you know, all these all these charges. And one of the things that they do strategically is they give you lots and lots and lots of charge as much as they could give you. So that you plea. So that you plea because it sounds so scary. And then they can pull them off little by little, one by one or whatever. And if you're left with one, you're like, wow, I had, you know.
know that would be the pitch right yeah well savannah we have 10 charges you can go to jail for 20 years or you complete guilty to one and it's a five-year max yeah yeah oh one sounds a lot better than ten so you think you're like oh shoot i'm getting a deal yeah yeah it's definitely a scare tactic um
And then also if you go to trial and we talked about this, if you go to trial and you just lose one, it's big, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And the conviction rate is what? 97, 98%. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. So,
This happens. And then I continue. There's obviously a big period of time, especially because COVID hit. Yeah. So my trial kept getting moved back and moved back and moved back and moved back. And so indicted in March of 2019. And I ended up going to prison in January of 2022. January, like the very beginning of January. And to your experience was... I pled guilty also. Yeah. I didn't go to trial. No. Thank God. Because you...
I feel like with the way that your case happened, it's you, part of you wanted to go to trial because you wanted to show. I planned on going to trial. Yeah. You planned on it, but then you also were hit with, you have a wife and kids and you
the way the government scares you, they just do. So you're like, shoot. It is very scary because when you contemplate going to trial, you know, there's, and if you testify, you get additional charges. And I mean, obviously, you know, when most people go to trial, they get knocked over the head big time. So if they were to plead and you got, you know,
three years you go to trial and you get six seven years yeah it's always so it's uh there is definitely a penalty and the government gets mad like you're they're mad because you're making them work yeah and that's one of the things that i that i in prison you really find out i had a guy in prison uh that your dad i'm sure knows um who was a a guy there who i guess i'm jumping too far ahead you're jumping too far ahead of the story you're ruining it go never mind okay the big reveal yes so
You pled. And then when, from that point, like what date was that? And then what date did you go to prison? So, um, so, okay. What, what happened was I changed my plea. And when I changed my plea, that's when like, so in my brain, in my compartmentalizing brain, right. I just, I always thought I was going to win. I always thought I'd be okay. I told everybody I'd be okay. I mean, it was like,
I believed it so much that I sold people left their night on it. I had a private equity company come in and buy 24% of Redcon. And I...
And I, you know, it's almost like now it's like I feel like I pitched them, but I believed so much that I was going to be OK that they believed he's going to be OK. And this is a safe investment, although they're doing just fine with the investment. But they're doing fine. But I believed it so much that everybody else believed it. Yeah. That I'd be OK. I'm going to be OK. I'm going to be OK. I tell everybody. And then when I changed my plea, I realized there's no way to pretend I'm going to be OK anymore.
And that's kind of when like, like my compartmentalizing failed and I started feeling just, I'd wake up in the morning with this tremendous anxiety, like pressure on my chest. Because you truly start counting down the days. Counting down the days. Also there's, there's, there's, there's a level of, this is the, one of the biggest things with human, people in general is when there's uncertainty, it,
It messes with people. Yeah. And there's a lot of uncertainty because you don't know what it's going to be like in prison. You don't know how long you're going to go for. You don't know. Like, you don't know. And I had a judge that was famous for not allowing people to turn themselves in.
So he doesn't allow, he makes you remands you. He remands you. So as soon as you lose, you get taken to county jail and you go through the process and then you go to a federal detention center and then you go from there on a bus or a plane, Conair or a bus to another federal detention center to your final destination. So, um,
Yeah, I... So was it the moment you pled guilty you were taken? No, no, no, no. I mean, I probably would have been better in retrospect. When I change my plea to guilty, then they have, they do a sentencing. At the sentencing, you leave immediately. Most people get their sentencing and they have time to get their affairs in order and report to wherever their destination is. Which is what mom and dad were blessed with. Thankfully. Thankfully. So...
So anyway, I changed my plea. And then, man, I had this anxiety. And I'm not, like I said, I'm a happy person. I'm not like, I don't really get depressed. I don't have anxiety. I mean, it feels like I have it now. But I don't like have, had to not have anxiety issues. But I would wake up, like for the moment I would wake up, I'd be like, for a minute, for like a second, I'd be like, oh, all good. And then all of a sudden it would like crush me. And my poor decision was that I medicated myself with alcohol.
So I wouldn't get like drunk, but like, you know, in the evenings I would start drinking more and the anxiety would go away. When I was at work, I would be distracted because I went to work every day, even after I pled guilty. And I went to the gym every day.
But as I got closer and closer to going to prison, I drank more and more so that it would remove anxiety. And so literally I would do like a shot of vodka and then the anxiety would recede a little bit. It would still be there, but it would recede. And then it would start coming forward and forward and I'd do another one and so on and so forth. And as a result of that, I made stupid decisions. I took friends of mine out on my boat at night and I crashed my boat.
I went to went to jail for crashing my boat, which is when you're already pled guilty. It's pretty bad to do that Yeah, doesn't look good And so I went to County Jail for that I hit my head and it was a whole another thing and that was all the news and everybody reported on it and YouTube videos and you know, I think you know, unfortunately America as much as America loves a comeback story They sure love to see people fall from grace
Literally always said they'd love to build you up just to tear you down. Well, I experienced that. I experienced that where people were, you know, they loved it. They thought it was so cool that this guy, that I was...
disintegrating I was falling apart and so right before I was gonna turn like three weeks before I was turning myself in I had started taking Ambien and I crashed the car took Ambien and at night got a fight with my wife went downstairs after taking it to at a hotel in Miami thinking I would go down and get food and like she'd be asleep when I come back and I'd be able to go to bed I never taken any before and I ended up driving the car and like into a tree or something and
- Dear God. - And so like this is, that's when they remanded me. That's why I said it probably would have been good if I would have just went. - Just gone then. - It's tough, man. It's really tough. That's a super tough period of time talking to all the prisoners that I now know, all the guys who have dealt with this. That period of time is really tough, mentally really tough. - 'Cause you have to start letting go of everything that you're leaving and everyone, which is really tough.
And to you. So you from the moment you were taken into custody because you didn't get to self-report at that point in time, you were in a bunch of different institutions. Yes. And what were the differences between those until the moment you got to FPC Pensacola where dad's at? So when I when I initially started.
went in, you go to county jail initially. They have to book you through the county jail system. And then you go from there to the federal detention center. So the worst part of it was that I went during COVID. I mean, you know, COVID was like pretty much over. It wasn't over at all for them. So when I got to county jail, you have to go to a quarantine.
And so what they do is they bring you to a cell where they close the door and you're with one other person and you have to sit it out basically for 14 days. And they let you out twice a week to shower for 15 minutes to shower. And they bring a phone to the cell. So you have one 15 minute phone call a day.
And you just sit there. And I sat there for a few days before I got books. And then I just read books like nonstop. And I had the good fortune of having initially in the first county jail, a guy didn't speak English, which that sounds like that sounds like that'd be bad. But some of these guys that were in these cells, I could hear them because it's, you know, a big unit and there's all these doors all around the sides and two floors of it, tiers.
And you could hear guys who like sing or rap or like nonstop talking or kick the door. That's one of the things that people will kick the door over and over again, trying to get the guard's attention. So my guy was like calm. He didn't really talk to me. Yeah. He just slept a lot, read his Bible and like left me alone.
Like if I would have gone it was it was a blessings if I would got one of these dudes who was like non-stop rapping and kicking the door I don't know what happened Like I don't know. I don't know if I would be able to make it without being some sort of violent encounter or losing my mind Yeah, so you sit there for 14 days. The problem was for me is they kept moving me so every time you get moved you start over quarantine again and
So, so I'd be there for like seven, eight days. It's shifted me to another one. Then I'd start quarantining again there for three days, four days. I should meet another one. Can you do the quarantine again? And then when I finally got to, so when I, when we left, when I was in county jail, everybody would say like, when you get to the feds, when you get to the, they call it the building in Miami, uh,
The Federal Detention Center in Miami. FDC Miami. They're like, it's a five-star resort. You're going to love it. It's great. Food's better. Everything's better. More respectful people. And I was like, oh, I can't wait to get to the building. Yeah. That's what I was actually looking forward to getting there. Yeah. And then I got there and it was horrible. Like, what a misconception. That's the thing. It was so bad. Yeah. Okay. So you got there. I got there. And of course, I went right back to quarantine. Yeah.
And so they bring you up to, I was in the 11th floor called G unit on the 11th floor. And I was with very lucky again. I got a rabbi who was my, was my cellmate.
This guy, Yosef Tillis. Nice guy. We had a lot of great conversation. But the first 10 days I got there, there was gang violence in Beaumont, Texas. So they shut down all federal prisons completely on total lockdown. So I was on this lockdown unit. I would already be locked down in quarantine, but at least during quarantine, they let you out for some period of time every day. But for the first 10 days there, I wasn't able to leave at all.
So we didn't get to wash our clothes or have underwear, new underwear or toothbrush or a shower for 10 days. And so we're literally locked in this cell, me and him, for 10 full days without getting out one time.
And it was like, you know, it's about as bad as it gets and you get very little food I actually just to give you an idea I was 255 when I came when I went to jail initially by the time I made the Pensacola I was 212 pounds. Okay, so I starved. Okay starved. That's awful I literally starved because usually guys get commissary and
But in the building and in County Geo, I was never there long enough to get commissary. So I just had the very bare minimum food. Like for breakfast, you get two pieces of bread, dry cereal, and like a thing of milk and maybe a piece of fruit. That's like your breakfast. And then lunch is bologna sandwich or something like that. And then dinner is some other like, you know, something small. And so this is about 1,200 calories. For a big guy, you know, you lose weight quick.
Was there anything of nutritional value that you were receiving? Not much. Not much. Not until you get to Pensacola when it got better, you know. But you were still like. I lost a lot of weight. I was starving. I told you earlier. So when you got to Pensacola. Yes. Were you, and to what people don't realize is like when you get to, you were now at the lowest security facility you could possibly be at. Yeah, and other places, like you mentioned, the building is a high level. It's like a basically penitentiary type facility.
Because it's everybody. You could be a murderer, a rapist. You could be a really, really bad violent guy. And I saw violence and I was around that in those places. Whereas Pensacola is a camp. And in the camp, they don't tolerate any violence at all. There's no... I didn't... In Pensacola for the entire time I was there, I never saw one fight. I heard about stuff happening where guys would go to the bathroom and kind of like settle beefs. Yeah. But it was like...
I didn't see anybody ever get beat up or anything like that. And too, when you get to the camp, there are no cells. No, there's no cells. There's no, there's, there's gates, but there's no barbed wire, no razor wire. It's, you know, if you want to leave, they'll let you leave. Like if you, if you wanted to walk out the front door, nobody's going to stop you. Yeah. Now you'll end up getting five or 10 years more prison time when they catch you and you go, but you could just walk out. Um,
it's it's uh when i got to pensacola prison camp when i got fpc pensacola i felt like i was i wanted to get out of the bus because you're chained in the bus and stuff you're shackled it's really terrible it's the worst probably one of the worst parts was the 15 hour bus ride being shackled from uh from miami out there so uh to tallahassee and i stayed at tallahassee a little bit and then the bus ride anyway so the uh
When I got there, I literally wanted to kiss the ground. I felt like I was in the promised land. Driving through those gates and seeing everything and seeing prisoners walk around on their own. Hey, small businesses. Sentara Health Plans has a team dedicated to answering your questions, leaving time for other business thoughts like... How did an action figure get stuck in the air vents? Or... What is the ideal human-to-goat ratio for my yoga class?
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And like...
Like the whole thing and seeing that there was a weight pile, because that's why I wanted to go to Pensacola in the first place, they had weights. Yeah. I requested to go to Pensacola. Yeah. And... Because in federal cases, what people don't realize is you can request. Yeah. And you also, now under federal law, you have to be within 500 miles of your family. Yes. Part of the new laws.
All that stuff, like all the Trump stuff that he brought on. He's the only president that's ever done anything for prisoners. The First Step Act, which the First Step Act, I have said, regardless of anyone's political beliefs and opinions, Democrat, Republican, whatever it may be.
First Step Act was a huge, huge win for people within our prison system. Because now when you're served with 12 years, you're not serving 12 years due to the First Step Act and all the classes you can take, credits you can earn, things of that nature. And so what would you say when you, so you got to Pensacola and you were like, okay, this is amazing.
- Except they put me back in quarantine again. But then after that, I had 14 more days of quarantine, but the quarantine was nowhere near as bad. You're in this place called D dorm, which is segregated from the rest of the dorms. And it really was the, even though it was another 14 days and I was super bummed 'cause I was so excited to be there, then to be told like you're going back to quarantine again, it was tough. But as soon as I got out, you know, things were much, much better.
Okay. And so what would you say? Because clearly Pensacola has been labeled as Camp Cupcake. Yeah, I've heard that. It's got all the things. It's got a swimming pool. It's got a golf course. It's got, you know, is that the truth? No, no, none of that's the truth. From someone who actually served there. No, no, that's not the truth at all. It is...
Look, it's a warehousing of people. Yeah. That's really you're warehousing these guys. There's no rehabilitation going there. The classes, quote unquote classes are a joke. Nobody cares. There's no like there's no nobody's actually trying to help you get better. There's no there's none of that. Well, there had to because you did work and I was in education and the education department. So there had to have been some level of it that was rewarding to you.
Like being a tutor, educational tutor? Like being able to help? No, because nobody wanted any help. There was no real help to be given. I mean, there's people sign up for the classes to get the credit, but they don't actually like, there's not like real teaching going on. Like I didn't have, like I had classes, but like they just want to...
They didn't get their credit and go. Did they give you the proper tools, I guess, to do it? Not really. You play videos for the guys. So like, I really liked the world, a world at war. So it was, we did World War II, but I just played the video and then that's kind of it. Like people watch it or don't. I watched them, but people don't really watch them and they're just sitting in there, you know, killing time to get their credits. So no, I don't, I don't think there's any level of rehabilitation whatsoever. I think you just rehab, you know, you're housing people. And so,
So they give you a recidivism score when you go in there. And that's your chances of basically what your chances are of ending up back in prison. Yeah. And so if there's guys like me where my score is zero.
So like if you're sad, yeah. So if you're a first time nonviolent offender and you've never been in prison before and you're of a certain age, I think anybody over like 38 or 40. And there's a bunch of these factors that they look at, you know, your history, you have a family and they factor this all out and then you get a score. So my my question would be, if you don't have a chance of recidivism, like for me, it's really impossible because the products that I we made, we discontinued years and years ago.
So if your chances are zero and you pay your fine, so I paid my fine in cash. I owed $2.9 million and I paid it before I went for sentencing because my lawyers told me that if I paid it, I'd get a way lesser sentence. My co-defendant, my business partner, PJ, did not pay it at all. We got exactly the same sentence. So it didn't. No, it didn't do anything. But if you don't, like if you have, if you've done like, or if they want you to have a chance to pay it, obviously if you're in prison, you can't pay it.
No. Oh, you can't do anything with that. And whatever jobs you're providing, whatever thing you're doing for society, whatever you're doing for your family, those are all gone.
And now you have a person that you're warehousing that is no longer a productive member of society. And if you have given them a score of zero, probably they were a productive member of society. So what are we doing here? What is the point? And obviously, a lot of these people have money that they have to pay, fines, restitution, whatever it may be. And...
What reentry programs or development programs does the facility offer for when you get out? Because you've got guys in there that have served 10 years. It's terrible. And they get out. It's terrible. And what do they do? And so this is the thing that people don't understand is it's not... It goes even further than that because before you go in, you know, you basically... The...
Not just the government's almost like the world kind of tries to destroy you so you lose your bank accounts You lose your ability to have a credit card you lose your I lost Insurance policies my umbrella policy for my cars my house Everybody drops you from everything my credit for my business my credit card processor dropped everybody everybody dropped me every firm everything you can imagine said I don't want anything to do with you because you're accused of a crime so that's before you're even guilty this is all happening and
And obviously there's news about you. There's accusations. I mean, I wasn't even involved in my parents' stuff and Chase Bank dropped me and said, yeah, I could be caused reputational damage to their company. It's crazy. It's crazy. So this happens to you immediately. And I don't think people have any idea, but there's also the reputational risk.
damage that's done for you that's happening on the internet. People are talking, you're getting news stories about it. So now when you Google my name, my reputation is very important to me. I'd spent a lot of time and effort creating a really great reputation in business. And now you Google my name and the first page is all bad stuff.
And unfortunately on Google, bad stuff ranks higher than good stuff. Yeah. Yep. And that's part of their algorithm. They love bad news. People love bad news and they know it's going to click more. It goes up higher. And then the BOP, I'm sorry, the BOP, the DOJ stuff, anything from a government website is going to rank very high. So you're getting your life is being essentially annihilated. And I was very, very lucky, like your parents were very lucky to have created enough success that you have resources that you can
You know, combat this stuff. Yeah. You can fight it. You can fight it. So if you don't have resources like almost everybody, you know, you can't operate a business anymore. You don't have bank accounts. You can no longer have the ability to fight the government because you don't have money to pay for a lawyer. Yeah.
You know, there's all of these terrible ramifications for an accusation. Yeah. And then when you plead guilty or lose a trial, it happens all over again. Yeah. So whatever chances you had before you went in, all your whatever, your savings, your nest egg, your... It's all gone. Your capital, your reputational capital is gone. Yeah. So then you go to prison. And when you come out of prison, you're way worse off. And now you're a convicted felon. Nobody wants to hire you. You can't get a bank account now because you're a convicted felon.
And you're reporting for probation. You may not have a car. You may not have a license. Whenever you're drug tested, that interrupts whatever job you possibly could have. Some of these guys get drug tested multiple times a week.
And if you're getting drug tested, you have to report to get drug tested from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. So basically during your workday, you must leave your work. To go get tested. So now you have a job that you had to tell them, hey, I'm a convicted felon. I just got out of prison. And now I'm going to have to leave work a few times a week in the middle of the day to go get drug tested. So these guys' chances are like...
How are they going to like figure it out? How are they going to build it, rebuild the life? And so, and that's the thing is it's so much easier to identify the problems than it is to, um,
Find and implement the solutions to it. And so people don't care unfortunately what we're talking about until you're affected directly by it that's what we've said and and I I Personally would have said the same thing. I thought DOJ was the good guys I thought Department of Justice is justice. I never knew that a prosecutor Wants to win at all costs. I thought that if you were to go in this system and they were realize you're a good person and
you'd be all right. Yeah. And that's not the case. No, unfortunately it's not the case. And with your, if you could brainstorm with the reentry process, because obviously it is a very broken process right now, what would you say are some things that could be implemented within the system to help with that reentry process? Because regardless of what people want to believe, people that are getting out of prison,
They're going to be your neighbor. Yeah. So why not encourage this reentry in a healthier environment than what's being given now? Well, there's a few things. First thing is there should be a sentencing reform. The sentencing guidelines are crazy. I've said that. It's crazy. It's crazy stuff where you got guys that I met who are great people. Look, there's three types of people in prison. There's people that didn't do it at all. There's probably 20% that didn't do it at all. Yeah. There's another 30%.
Well, you know what the number is of what's been reported. What's been reported? One out of 20 criminal cases results in a wrongful conviction. Yes. And I would not be shocked if that was not higher. Oh, you also think about where we're talking about. Now you look at a camp-like situation. Yeah. I think 20% of the people, my guess, didn't do anything. I think 30% of the people made a terrible singular mistake.
Where they made a mistake in their life and they admit it I had people admit to me I have a one guy there's a doctor a spinal surgeon admitted he misspelled Medicare and he realized it and was scared to report self-report and pay the extra money because he didn't know what was gonna happen He so he ignored it fixed the fix the billing problem. Yeah, never paid He got audited years later and they found that he misspelled for a few years And sent him to prison got ten years in prison
Spinal surgeon Ivy League educated spinal surgeon and my thing is like I did mess up. I messed up Yeah, like why not pay the fine though and allow someone to be a contributing factor to society Yeah, I don't know it's oh it's but this is so there's that percent and there's 50% of the belong in prison so it's a I think the sentencing guideline stuff like the doctor who got ten years and
That stuff is really that's the most concerning thing where judges, even if the judges see so they want to give leniency, a lot of times they feel like, well, if I go outside of the guidelines, you know, I'm going to bring scrutiny on myself.
And so they don't. And then some judges, you know, obviously just go by the guidelines. Some go over the guidelines. And that's another thing that's weird is because you can get a great judge and the judge will like, you know, be reasonable. Yeah. You get a bad judge. This is all random. Same with prosecutor. You can get a prosecutor that looks at your case and goes,
I'm not gonna prosecute. Yeah another one that goes I'm a crusher. That's what happened with ours It took a couple prosecutors to finally say we're gonna prosecute Yeah, so it's and that's so up in the air. That's scary where you can where it's it's literally the roll of the dice That you get a good judge or you get a bad judge You know good prosecutor or bad guy or you get a prosecutor who wants who thinks you did something terrible Yeah, and feels like you know, it's their job to bring you to justice or you got another one that says, you know what?
this is a mistake. This is an accident. And two, something that you touched on earlier to where you jumped ahead. Sorry. You, or maybe we weren't recording at the time. I don't know. But you spoke about eating out of the trash can. That was my first time hearing about that. Yes. So you have to tell me what...
Yeah, I was in F as an FDC Miami and we were eating so little amount of food and I was we were star out me and Yosef, the guy was in there with were starving. And so this is when they were letting us out just to go shower.
And so we had the opportunity really you didn't have to just shower You could go use the computer or try to use the phone, but you only had a really short period time 30 minutes or so It's kind of make a choice. Yeah, shower. You're only twice a week So you're gonna shower and try to use the phone you need to do and so me and him came up with a game plan that when I would go to shower and and he was not showering he would go through the garbage cans and get all the styrofoam trays that had food left them and
and bring them back to the room. And then when I and then we reversed on another day, I would do the scavenging and he would be showering. And so a lot of guys would leave their collard greens because I was one of the lunches like their greens. Not everybody eat the greens. And so we would get all the greens and they would leave their salt packets. So it's salt up the greens and we eat the greens out of the out of the trash can, out of the garbage, out of the other inmates didn't eat.
And that's how hungry we were. And that's the level of desperation. And the crazy thing is my life, like pre prison, you know, I'm a successful business owner and I live, you know, I'm the boss basically. And what,
What you don't realize, it's like how you just get up and go to your refrigerator. Oh, yeah. Go to your pantry and like you don't have that ability anymore. So now you're sitting in a federal prison system and you're eating out of a trash can. Literally from from from from a life of really, I mean, really luxury, to be honest with you. Yeah. An unusual life.
Yeah. Unusually, unusually bad, crazy, crazy switch. It was a very unbelievable like the juxtaposition of these two crazy differences is a lot. And that's one of the in my book. That's part of the introduction. That's what I brought up. Yeah. So what what's your book going to be titled? My book is called Raising Redcon and it's a business book slash memoir slash self-help book.
Where I hope that I provide enough value, business advice and advice, life advice to create success, help people create success while avoiding the pitfalls that that I did. So it's it's entertaining, but it's the idea is that it provides value and it's educational. For sure. So when does it come out? June 27th. It should have been April 25th, but.
Stuff happens. Stuff happens. So before we wrap up, I do want to touch on something. Yes. You posted on Instagram the other day. Yes. And I will say I saw it and I started crying because I...
was like, I can't wait for that day. Yeah. And it was a video of you walking out of prison and your little boy is running up to you. Yes. What how would you describe that moment? So the hardest part of going to prison initially, the hardest part was telling them that I was going to prison. Very difficult for me. I was part of the reason why I was drinking so much and felt the anxiety is because I have three little boys, Asher, Aiden and Elijah, 10, 7 and 5. And I have a very the way I teach my boys is
I have a very different parenting style. So I am raising little men and I teach them what it is to be a man and how to respect people on how to do what you say you're going to do. And we have a series of rules. We, the Singerman rules we go over and, and, and I have like a real style, a real style that I, that I do with, with these guys that I'm trying to. And so it doesn't, it doesn't comport like I can't, it doesn't make sense. I can't explain to them. I'm daddy's going to prison. It doesn't make sense.
So I struggled a lot with that. - Because you didn't follow the rules. - Right, yeah. Always, yeah, I mean, a lot of the rules. - That's in their mind where-- - A lot of the rules, and I wanted to make it make sense to them so they could still like identify with the rules and, you know, always-- - You did the best you could. - Yeah, but it ended up being okay, and while they cried and they were upset, it ended up being okay.
Getting out was was so when you're in there and I was an art app, which is the residential drug alcohol treatment program, which allows you to get out earlier in the morning meetings. It was in the chapel. And every day I would try to sit on the side where I could see the gates, the gates to go in and out of Pensacola. And I in the time that I was there, I never left. I didn't have a job outside because of our app. You can't leave.
So I would sit there in the morning and I would stare at those gates and I would imagine what it was going to feel like when I would leave the gates, like what it was going to be like. And I did it really like every day, pretty much sometimes multiple times a day or I would imagine. And then I had the because I sat there and I was there at that time in the morning when they let prisoners go at eight. I would see prisoners leave and reunite with their family. And I would always I would love it. I love that. Like that is probably one of the best, like the nicest moments in prison is seeing people leave.
So I get to see them leave and I'd watch them, you know, hug their family or whoever it was, or even if it's just getting into their friend's car and leaving, I'd be like, oh man, that's so awesome. I'd be super happy for people to leave. And, uh, and then even to see it happen was like a cool, like almost like a bonus. Yeah. And, um, and, and I would imagine what it was going to be like for me. So in the video I posted and it took me a while to even put, I had that video obviously since December 1st when I got out of prison. And we'll put it in,
in the video on YouTube for people to see. - Yeah, it's a good. - It's amazing. - Yeah, it's emotional. It was, it's so like,
You know like remembering it even watching the video again I didn't go back and watch it because it was like there's so much going on in my head and like My kids were crying. My oldest was crying really hard and you can hear it in the video I'm crying and I like it was just a lot they came with signs and I had a bunch of friends came we had to two SUVs picked me up and it was like a you know, it was a big big moment was a big big moment and very emotional moment and
And there's a look, there's a lot of things. It's a lot of good things came out of going to prison. I learned a lot and I came out a better person. I know that I am a better father out of it, a better leader, you know, a better business person, a better human in general.
there's a lot of positivity to be taken out of it. Yeah. Obviously, when you're there, it's it's it's hard to see that. But I told myself over and over again when I was there, like, this is good. This is a good thing. Like, there's something that there's a reason why I'm here. There's a reason that this is happening. And I'm going to take this experience
for whatever good I can get out of it. I'm going to wring the good stuff out of it and come out of here better than I did. That's awesome. Well, I just have to say I'm really proud of you. Thank you. And I'm really blessed to know you. Thank you. And you posting that video, really, I will say, I've had a really tough time in seeing that video. It gave me so much hope because I was like, that day's coming. It's coming. So just thank you. Of course. Yeah, thank you for coming on my podcast. Of course. My pleasure. Thank you for sending me all the Redcon1. Of course. I hope I didn't send you too much.
Grayson is in heaven. We're happy. And so your book. It's happening. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you. Oh, that's just me. Perez Hilton.
Drinking all the tea that goes on in this world. And with the way social media is, I just can't get enough. I'm obsessed. It's like every day something new and scandalous comes out and I want it all. I'm the OG of entertainment gossip. And if you are like me and have an unrelenting thirst for all the drama that's flying around, you should listen to my podcast. The Perez Hilton Podcast. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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