Mamamia Out Loud: The Complexity of Discussing Jock Zonfrillo’s Death

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Mamma Mia out loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud, what women are talking about on Wednesday the 3rd of May.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Jesse Stevens.

I'm dressed as a cat.

Meow.

On the show today, jocks on frillo and what we are owed when a public person dies.

Plus, the fanciest party of the year just happened and we have questions about PDA cats and cancellation.

Meow.

And the major etiquette rule that is very simple but incredibly difficult to do.

But first.

His dishes delighted and his charisma in the kitchen captivated viewers.

But the sudden death of master chef judge, jock as on frillo, has left a family devastated and fans in shock.

As we learned through a statement from his family on Monday, 46 year old television chef, author and restaurateur, jock as on frillo, died on April 30.

He was found by police after a welfare check was called in the early hours of Monday, May 1 in Melbourne.

So he was in Melbourne to fulfill publicity commitments for the new season of master chef, which was due to air on Monday night.

And his family were still in Rome where he'd come from.

He's survived by his wife Lauren Freed and four children, two teenagers, a five year old son and a two year old daughter.

Now Monday was a really weird day.

We recorded the show.

I was recording in Melbourne because I was heading in to do the project.

We're recording to my run sheet as far as I knew when we recorded, we would be interviewing jocks on frillo.

And I was looking forward to it because me and I knew that you'd interviewed him.

Holly, you've interviewed him.

And everyone who had ever crossed paths with him just said what a brilliant, lovely, warm guy he was.

We learned just after 2pm that he had died suddenly and the statement did not reference a cause of death.

On the show that night, we're interviewing journalists and a friend of jock and asking the questions that we knew Australians were asking about cause.

And if there was anything else, any other information.

And then on the way home after the show, I was looking at Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and sort of scrolling through news stories.

And I was really uncomfortable with what I saw.

Hence the article I wrote for my me yesterday about what we do not know about jock's death.

So there's been a lot of implications, really clear overtones in media publications about how Zonfrillo died.

For context, and I think this is important context and entirely relevant to note.

He wrote an autobiography in 2021, which is may I what you interviewed him about called last shot.

And he wrote very candidly about his struggles with heroin addiction and his experience with mental health.

He always carried worry beads with him, which helped with anxiety.

And that's all part of his legacy.

Again, those details are relevant.

But drawing a straight line between those experiences and the cause of death seemed to me and still seems presumptuous, unethical and disrespectful to the family.

And I wrote on Mamma Mia that we know the death is not being treated as suspicious and people are reading a lot into that.

Because sometimes when they say that they mean that the person is clearly not a victim of a crime.

Exactly, exactly. That's not code for anything.

It simply means that police are sure that there was no crime.

And a report will be prepared for the coroner. And again, that's not code for anything.

It means they died of one of three ways, either accidentally they took their own life or they died of natural causes.

But it means that there was no third party involved and there was no crime committed.

But for example, I've known people in my life who have died in their 40s, 50s and 60s.

And a coroner's report needed to be put together because whether it was a stroke or a heart attack or whatever it is.

When someone dies in their 40s, which is so young, often you don't know until you've done autopsy.

Well, I know that it's human nature to want to know how someone died, especially when they were only 46.

When they were being broadcast into our living rooms, Jock's on Frillo's face was everywhere.

It was on every billboard ad because of this new season of Masterchef.

And when it's sudden and such a shock, I think that's very natural to just go, how did he die?

I did too. And I think that that curiosity is actually rooted in, I mean, there's a certain amount of voyeurism and rubber-necking.

And we've talked about that on this show in different contexts before, that it's human nature to be curious about a tragedy,

which is why we do look as we drive past a car accident.

But I also think that if you look at sort of the cave people, particularly women,

we gather information to try and learn something to help our tribe survive into the future.

So if someone died from eating a certain berry, we need to know that so that we can tell our tribe, don't eat that berry.

And I'm not saying that knowing how Jock died is going to help someone live longer.

But if someone tells you they were diagnosed with breast cancer,

one of the things that people will always say is, was she getting regular mammograms?

Or, you know, did she have any symptoms?

Because we want to know, hey, is there anything that I can learn from this to stop it happening to me or someone that I love?

And often what will happen too is that when there's a very public death, say by breast cancer,

you'll see a real uptick in people going and getting their breasts checked because of the awareness.

But the thing is with this, we will find out what Jock's unfurlose cause of death was.

We will find that out.

Very unlikely that that is not going to be made public in some way when it's found.

The thing that is distasteful about the speculation is that we all just want this narrative to be done with almost immediately.

Not done with as if we want to move on, we want to pick over it.

And because he was, as you've already referenced, Jesse, very public with his what we could call struggles.

But it's part of his whole story, his whole origin story, you know,

and one of the reasons why people loved him so much is that he seemed to have overcome all these things.

So people really are so curious about that narrative and they want there to be a story they can tell from it.

The thing that's so distasteful is we are so impatient for that.

We are so impatient.

This is a man who died in a different country to the place where his wife and his young family were and completely out of the blue, as we all know.

So before those people have even got on a plane, before they can even get here,

before they can even begin to make sense of it,

before his employer, who have a multi-million dollar project about to launch and they're trying to work out what to do with it,

before anyone can do anything, everybody just wants to say,

well, clearly it was this and clearly it was that, which I think personally is disrespectful.

The other piece to it is the media and we're very much part of the media.

And so, of course, we reported on this.

It's a news story.

It's absolutely in the public interest.

Everybody feels they know him.

Everybody loves him.

It's not disrespectful to report on it.

No.

But then there was a lot of reporting in subsequent days that speculated about other causes, possible causes.

You were very careful in your story not to name publications and to kind of fan the flames of that speculation.

But some of it was kind of saying he had gone to great lengths to hide a health battle.

And again, the ethics of less than 24 hours after somebody is dead, digging up, supposedly,

something that they had gone to great lengths to keep private, supposedly,

and spreading it out all over the media is so distasteful.

Yeah.

But is that always the case mirror is this reporting?

Because in my mind, if he was a world leader, if he was the prime minister, a politician, a monarch,

you know, somebody like that, I think that there is a much clearer line for justification of a public interest

in knowing what happened, when did it happen, how did it happen, what's the tick tock, all those things.

But this is a reality TV judge who we all really liked.

I mean, I was an enormous fan.

But what happened to him is literally none of our business.

What is our business is whether we get to watch our show next week, I guess.

But am I being pious in suggesting that some of those reports shouldn't have been published?

I think there's two different things.

I think there's the reports that were published and then there's people's curiosity and they are actually linked

because the reason the reports are published is because they know people will click on them, right?

Now, my group chats and my text messages were full of people from all walks of life,

not just media people wanting to know what happened.

I think that when there's a vacuum of information, we want to fill it.

But there has to be a vacuum of information in this particular instance, right?

Yeah, but I can think of instances of people that I know who died unexpectedly and I never found out,

like friends of mine, like not super close friends but people that I would call friends

and they died unexpectedly.

I assume there were coroner's reports, but I never knew and I feel weird about that.

Now, does it make any difference?

They've just died.

It feels strange.

It feels unfinished.

Unfinished is the wrong word, but I don't feel that I can say to their loved ones,

hey, what did the coroner's reports?

Because you do sound ghoulish, but there's something in me that needs to know

because I don't know why I need to know, but I just do.

I think that we have to get comfortable with the idea that maybe we're not going to know everything.

I mean, I'm sure, as I said at the beginning, I want to know.

No, I know why I want to know because it's too scary to not know.

And I think I've just landed my plane in my head about why people are curious.

It is too scary when someone that you feel that you know or that you do know,

someone who's on your television, dies suddenly and unexpectedly.

That's too bloody scary.

So I need to know so that I can sleep at night.

I appreciate that.

I'm not talking literally about jock, but I'm talking about the human nature.

I appreciate that.

And I tried to differentiate that to say what you talk about in your group chats is one thing.

And I actually think that's fine and that's human nature.

But what I struggled with were media organisations pretending they weren't doing something they were,

which was being very intentional about language they were using.

I referred to a particular tabloid who made it sound like Jock's on Frillo was found on the street,

not in a hotel.

I thought that report when I was on there immediately.

That wasn't an accident.

Yeah.

And then final posts on Facebook that were mysterious and eerie.

Okay, you're making an implication.

And what it was was promotion for MasterChef.

And the other thing.

And the haunting final days where it's just basically sensationalising it.

Yes.

And the other thing that I couldn't quite make my mind up about was the use of Lifeline.

Because when Lifeline is put in, Lifeline is Australia's leading suicide prevention service.

When that number is put in, generally speaking, it is because the person that is being written about has died by suicide.

So to put that in can be quite telling.

That is code.

That is really coded.

Because the media is not meant to ever report methods of very strict reporting lines.

So you can never, when you're talking about the fact that someone had died, you can't describe how they died if they died by suicide.

And I felt that it was important yesterday to go, we actually don't know.

There is no media conspiracy going on right now because that exists doesn't mean that some insider somewhere knows.

They really, really don't.

And as you say, Holly, we've got to be able to sit with a bit of uncertainty.

This is what death does.

Death sometimes happens and everyone looks around and goes, he seemed perfectly or she seemed perfectly healthy.

What happened?

And maybe we've got to wait a little while.

But the idea that we would pour and speculate over those details in a public way when a family is in the air.

They haven't even landed yet.

Just felt so impatient.

Agreed.

It can be a fine line for media, right?

I will totally cop to that.

We very frequently, when you're talking about all kinds of tragic things, you have to walk a line with your coverage about what's sensitive, what's responsible, what's helpful.

What do the family want people to know?

What don't they want to know?

What do we think is important for people to know regardless of that?

Those are questions that journalists, media organizations have to ask themselves all the time.

We're not out of that.

But yes, it does seem this has been a rush.

And when I said it's business, that sounds incredibly callous.

And, you know, I know and love Jock's wife, Loz.

It's like you sort of split into two.

It's like the personal side of it, which I think everyone can empathize with.

But then the drama of it and the mystery of it and all of that.

And when I say it's business, I mean there's supply and demand.

So people are curious.

They're interested for details.

They're going to click on those stories, which can then be monetized by media.

So is it media's fault for monetizing what already exists?

That becomes a bit of an existential ethical question.

The other question that is being asked is what's going to happen with Masterchef.

Which is related to what Mia is saying because that is a massive business decision for Channel 10.

And it's not insensitive that those conversations would have been going on from the minute this news dropped in those boardrooms at Channel 10.

Because Masterchef is very unusual show in that, well, obviously it's their flagship.

It costs millions of dollars.

It employs hundreds of people to make it.

And it runs for months and months and months.

Four nights a week, four months.

And so trying to work out and second guess how the public are going to feel about that show in the light of this enormous loss is an enormous challenge for 10.

I'm a big fan of that show.

I was a fan of it originally and then I kind of went off it because it was boring.

And then like the rest of Australia, when they employed Melissa and Jock and Andy and they revitalized it.

I was back on board and very quickly developed an embarrassing girl crush on Jock's on Frillo as we've talked about before.

And when he came in, he was the most gracious about that.

I'm sure it wasn't a surprise to him that lots of women around Australia felt that way about him.

No, what was funny is that at the time and in the interview, he was saying how Lauren, his wife actually looked after his social media.

And so the things that women would send him, like pictures of their boobs, she would say.

In me as no filter, he talks about that.

But this is really interesting.

There's some discussion obviously about should it be shelved out of respect?

Will it be ultimately the family's call really, whether or not they want that out there?

I know as somebody who loved the show and loved him, I would like to see that season.

I'd like to remember him and honour him and see him again, doing his amazing, what he does.

He was always so empathetic.

He was always so great at, he was always empathetic.

He was always supported and he had this trademark at the end when people got voted off where it'd be like,

give it up for and he was the leader and the main cheerleader and he was so great.

And I think Australia would really like to see him do that.

But the tricky part is for months and months and months,

people will be pouring over it to see if there are signs and clues and symbols.

It will extend the media speculation for a long time.

It's a really difficult call.

It's got to be done with consultation with his family, which it sounds like it's being done.

But I reckon Network 10 has done a great job in terms of holding it for a week

and just going, we're going to make some decisions.

Well, they had to because it's not just actually about his family.

It's about the tens of millions of dollars of sponsorship money, what advertisers want,

you know, do sponsors want to be in a show that is it going to feel a bit haunted?

What would the family want?

What would Jock want?

And those decisions have to be made really fast at a time when everybody is in shock.

And it has all been filmed.

So the season itself is ready to go.

I would imagine that there will be lots of discussions and then they'll push it back.

I would imagine that it will be broadcast.

And of course, goes without saying, but I'm going to say it.

We send all of our love and our heart is with his family, his friends, his loved ones, his colleagues.

Gone too soon.

And what a great guy.

It's worth mentioning as well that by the time this episode goes live or by the time you listen to it,

we might know what happened.

We do not know now and we've not known over the past few days,

but those details I imagine are going to come out.

And either way, our thoughts are just with his family.

All you've got to do is grab that trophy.

We are going to create something really special.

It is the red carpet event to end all red carpet events, right?

The Met is always held on the first Monday in May.

And by the way, Monday is the coolest day for a party.

I just said that you all know that someone was dressed as a cat.

Okay, so tell me all about this.

Actually, more than one person was dressed as a cat,

but oddly enough, that wasn't the most headline-grabbing thing that came out of the Met Gala that happened in New York City yesterday.

Did you guys watch it?

I watched it on social media, like all the pictures.

There were TVs all around the office all tuned into it.

So I stood in front of them for quite some time.

I like to see the dresses.

And then I went through and clicked through every dress.

Cool people party on Mondays, and it's a fundraiser.

And it raises funds for the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute in New York City.

That's what it raises funds for.

And they need it a lot.

Especially at the moment.

They need it to buy food, nappies, clean water.

It's organized by Anna Wintour, and every year it has a theme.

Now, the theme is always kind of controversial because themes just are controversial, right?

Like, very hard to nail a theme.

But this year's theme was a person.

And that person was controversial.

It was Karl Lagerfeld.

So he's the legendary Chanel designer and other designer things, too.

But he was very famous.

In my mind, he's always linked to Chanel.

And he died in 2019.

And he's on the record as saying, and these are just a couple of his greatest hits, that

people who complain about models being thin are often, and I quote, fat mothers with their

bags of chips sitting in front of the television.

He also claimed that Syrian refugees were turning German people anti-Semitic and defending

a fashion stylist who was accused of sexual assault.

He said, if you don't want your pants pulled down, don't be a model.

The nunnery is always recruiting.

These are the kind of things that Karl said often.

Anyway, the fact that every famous person on the planet was happy to go to a party to celebrate

him really pissed some people off.

Now, Jamila Jamil, who is not known for not saying what she thinks, posted today that

the decision for everybody to go and celebrate Karl made a mockery of the left.

She said, last night, Hollywood and fashion said the quiet part out loud when lots of

famous feminists chose to celebrate at the highest level, a man who was so publicly

cruel to women, to fat people, to immigrants, and to sexual assault survivors.

And then she said that we're all complicit because we all clicked on it.

But then she said, and I think this is interesting.

She said, nobody has perfect morals, least of all me, but Jesus Christ, we had a year

to cross correct here and not award the highest honor possible to a known bigot.

And everyone just suddenly decided we can separate the art from the artist when convenient.

It's one rule for us and another rule for everyone else.

This isn't about cancel culture.

It's not even about Karl.

It's about showing how selective cancel culture is within liberal politics in the most blatant

way so far.

It's about showing why people don't trust liberals because of slippery tactics and

double standards like this.

If we carry on like this, Jamila says, don't be shocked when we lose the next election.

Jesse, is she right?

Does celebrating Karl Lagerfeld make a mockery of cancel culture?

Yes.

I found a quote by Piers Morgan that I agreed with.

And that is when you know things have become wild.

He wrote, this annual gathering in New York where the world's most privileged, pampered,

prima donnas indulge in an orgy of, I don't know this word, but unconscious, ostentatious

extravagance has grown increasingly nauseated in recent years as the rest of the planet

fights killer viruses war and the worst cost of living crisis in memory.

And he basically said, this is a bunch of hypocrisy and you work people want to lecture

me on what I can and can't say.

And then you've got someone come out who's fat phobic and homophobic and all these things.

Can I ask who?

Like they're talking about this monolith of woke people.

When I walked past the TV and clicked on the photos, it was the Kardashians, some actors,

Nicole and Keith.

So what the example Piers Morgan used, Em Rada.

So Em Rada Kowski, who's been really vocal about the Me Too movement, the sexual exploitation

of women and all of that.

He said she was happy to show up.

I think that when Jamila Jamil says prominent feminist, I think she does mean Em Rada, but

there were also a whole roll call of Hollywood stars there who usually would be very on board

with any finger wagging.

Margot Robbie is a really massive advocate with same sex marriage.

Hang on.

There's a difference between being an advocate for something and being a scolding finger

wagging proponent of cancel culture.

I don't think it's fair to lump those two things together.

And I think if it's a mockery of cancel culture, well, then that's good because I think cancel

culture deserves to be mocked.

But I also think that you can't.

It's back to this idea of the impossibility of purity politics because that's what she's

saying.

But she's also scolding them and being pure and saying we had a year.

We shouldn't have done this.

The people that went are terrible and I didn't go probably because she didn't get invited

and I didn't go.

That means I'm more pure than the people who did go.

And it's just like.

Yeah.

It's exhausting.

And I actually think the fact that then the feminists get called out.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

It's being a feminist is the worst thing.

Never mind the men who have never had to say anything about anything.

Yeah.

But I do think that even the fashion industry or the entertainment industry or Hollywood

running around like their hairs on fire going, this man said some problematic things.

There is not a person in fashion who does not think what that man said out loud.

Like you look at the absolute elitism of the Met Gala.

Do you think that the people who are in that high, high ranks at Chanel have any respect

for that people?

No.

But this is why I think it's an interesting point that Jamil makes, right?

Because we are selective about who we cancel.

And when I say we and I say cancel, I mean who we criticize and who we go, we're not

going to go see those movies anymore.

We're not going to go see that comedy show anymore.

We're not going to support this anymore.

We're very selective.

And I think that this is a really good illustration of that because, I mean, I entirely agree

with you, Jessie.

I think like the fashion industry can't be woke.

It just can't.

And it's trying.

There are lots of people in it who are trying with more body diversity on the catwalks.

But ultimately, high fashion is problematic to its bones because it's very expensive.

It's elitist.

It's elitist.

It deals with the richest of the rich.

So not everything can be made woke in inverted commas, and not everything should be made

woke in inverted commas.

I do kind of agree with her that it's funny to me that a lot of these people who are very

kind of cool, edgy, young, Hollywood, they will go to this party.

They will walk over broken glass together and invite to this party no matter what the

theme is.

Hang on.

Hang on.

Hang on.

He said three, four, 10, 20 awful things.

No.

I think he was probably honest.

No, no.

But he did.

Now, could you find some awful things that I've said and you've said and you've said you absolutely

could.

So Michael Jackson music, right?

I really like listening to it.

It's really good music.

But does that mean that I'm condoning what Michael Jackson is alleged to have done to

children?

No.

And should I be saying to you, don't listen to Michael Jackson music or your hypocrite?

And I've always had this position.

I think you make your own decisions about who you're counseling, who you don't, right?

I haven't gone to see anything with Mel Gibson in it for years because I think he showed

himself to be a horrible human.

And I don't want to give him any money.

So I've canceled him in my mind.

He has canceled.

Lined through him.

Karl Lagerfeld said a lot of awful shit, but so did as Jesse said, many people in fashion.

We've tolerated imperfect humans for all of time.

We give more leeway though, definitely to problematic humans who are very influential,

who know all the right people, who are privileged, all that stuff.

So of course you can make your own decision.

And I think that's what we see here is that everyone who went to the Karl Lagerfeld celebration

had to make their own decision and they all made the decision to go.

We don't know who did go.

Well, I can't think of very many famous people who weren't there.

So Jessica Parker wasn't there?

Sure, right.

Beyonce wasn't there?

I think what that tells you is that broadly people went, yeah, but I want to go to the

party and I want to wear the nice clothes.

I do agree that in a way that makes a bit of like next time anyone on the red carpet

there wants to lecture somebody about something.

I think that there's fair ammunition.

If you want to make out loud part of your routine five days a week,

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mamma Mia subscribers to get full

access.

Follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

Why don't you have a decent conversation for a change?

I wonder what she's trying to advocate for.

Well, she wrote about one particular incident which sparked her vitriol.

She said, in a 24 hour period in Cape Town, I watched a visiting British family enter a

busy restaurant at dinner time, prop up an iPad in front of two previously perfectly

behaved children, turn on Boss Baby at full volume and then proceed to shout at each other

over the din they created.

That is when the parents weren't scrolling away on their own phones.

While the grandparents tried to interact with the movie watching grandchildren.

The next morning, out at a popular brunch place, I watched a woman sitting next to me

stare at her date for a solid hour while he scrolled through his phone, played

TikTok videos loud for his own amusement and took a few calls on speaker.

So she's put together seven rules.

Do you want to hear them?

Yes.

One, no volume, never.

Two, put your phone away when you're sitting down for a meal with other people.

Do you agree with that?

Yes.

Actually, what I usually do, I keep it out of my bag, but I turn it over.

I turn it over too.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

Exceptional circumstances.

If there's some call that you're waiting for, sick kids, you're like, oh, I'm waiting

for a call from work or something.

Yeah.

But you've got a flag at early.

I had dinner with a girlfriend a number of years ago and I was like trying to do this.

And so I turned off my phone, put it in my bag and I'm like, I want to be present in

this moment.

And then as we were walking out of the restaurant, I turned my phone back on.

There were like eight texts, six missed calls from home.

Who'd broken a bone?

It was Jay saying, the ambulance is coming, Coco's heard a neck, blah, blah, all this

stuff.

And then it was resolved.

It had all happened during the two hours my phone had been off.

And I guess the moral of the story is he handled it, but would I have liked to know at the

time?

Probably.

And I remember my friend, Bronn, said to me, we can never turn our phone off.

We're mothers.

Yeah.

Well, there's a lot of dripping judgment in that first anecdote there about the toddler

with Boss Baby.

Yeah.

I very much agree with the no volume ever.

I suspect Jill doesn't have babies.

I think you're right.

People who are parents yet always really judge people who give their toddlers or kids screens

in public.

Well, her third rule relates to that.

She said parents should decide for themselves and their families, whether they want to allow

screens for children and in which context.

And she said, no one else gets to say anything if an iPad is keeping a child calm on a plane

or at a restaurant.

However, volume rules apply, headphones or it's a silent screen.

And I think that that's fair enough, but I think that any parent of toddlers would

know there will sometimes be, you've forgotten the headphones, the toddler is going to scream

the place down if they don't get to listen to, but like, I'm not condoning that first

anecdote.

I think it's very selfish to play anything with the volume up and I catch public transport

a lot.

And I always sit in the quiet carriage on a train, right?

And I do this train journey up and down the coast.

I always sit in the quiet carriage where you are not supposed to have anything with volume

and your headphones have to be quiet and you're not allowed to take calls.

And there are people who will get into that carriage and watch their TV show or their

porn, perhaps have a call with a family member without headphones at the top of their voice.

And I think that those people should be thrown from the train.

I would never, ever confront them though, because a person who will watch a movie loudly

in a quiet carriage is not a person you want to fuck with.

Two more rules.

She said no screens on and obviously no volume on in the movies or anywhere where it's dark,

like ballet, operas, plays, whatever, where you need a dark room.

And her last rule is look up when you're walking if you're in a busy area.

That's true.

I'm terrible at this.

That's the one I break the most.

Same.

I will, if I even say walk my dogs, I'll be walking my dog for 45 minutes, I can get

all my emails done.

I can write a whole story while I'm walking.

And I don't do it well.

I trip.

Yeah.

The dog gets in trouble.

It doesn't work.

But this is the funny thing about phones, which makes it different to other etiquette.

When you are looking at your phone, you are no longer in the social world and you are

no longer picking up on any social cues.

So when I'm on my phone, if I was sitting here looking at it, I think it's totally justified

because guys, I'm just replying to this text.

You know that that's just going to take me 30 seconds.

Whereas to you, it's a completely different spectacle.

It completely removes you.

And I've had this, you know, the joke where you're at dinner with your partner or your

sister or whatever, and you keep yelling at each other to get off your phone because

what they're doing can wait.

But what I'm doing can't.

And so when you are immersed, you just can't see how rude you're being to run around to.

And parents do this too with their kids.

I spend all my time yelling at my kids to get off their phones.

And I am very frequently on my phone while I am yelling at them to get off theirs.

I have an etiquette question that I came across just this weekend, right?

I've wanted to run by you.

The other day I'm out and I'm on the phone to my mum, been really busy, haven't been

able to talk to her for a while and we're really 25 minutes into a really good chat.

And I was waiting on something.

So I went into a shop and I picked up a t-shirt and I was like, I'm going to buy this t-shirt.

So I went to the counter.

I'm still on the phone to mum, had the t-shirt at the thing and the person would not serve

me until I got off the phone.

She was looking at me and I was kind of like tap or whatever.

And it wasn't until I said, mum, I'll call you back or whatever.

And I said to her, oh, can I just grab this t-shirt?

But I was standing there for a good 10 minutes, waiting to be served.

That probably isn't very polite by me, but what do we think?

Do we need to get off the phone, call and interact with the retail worker?

Oh, see, I've been in retail.

I would be stoked that I didn't have to make small talk with you.

I thought that.

You have to recognise that that person's a human.

It's not a robot.

That person is not the thing in the supermarket.

We just go beep, beep, beep, that person's a human.

I get it.

We've all been in that situation where, but this is really important or I'm just

going to be really quick or whatever it is.

I mean, and I've done it plenty of times.

But I think that really it's one of the things that's making us all worse as people.

So in order to change that, you have to do the uncomfortable thing,

which is acknowledge that that person is entitled to a social interaction.

There's one more etiquette rule that I want to throw on there.

Do not perform listening when you're texting.

So if you do need to text them dinner and people go, yeah, I'm still listening.

I'm still listening and they will scroll through their phone and they're not.

You can't.

So the most polite thing is to go, I'm so sorry.

Give me 10 seconds to reply.

Yes.

Conversation stops, but the performing of the listening drives me mental.

There is something that we talked about on Monday.

I remember we were talking about paid partnerships for egg freezing and Tully

Smythe.

Tully Smythe reached out and we chatted about that segment and she made the point

and I thought this might have been the case, but she clarified that she has not

actually been paid by Monash IVF for those posts.

It is gifted.

But the way that Instagram works is that there's no option for like a gifted

partnership tag.

You have to say paid promotion.

So it looks like you've been paid for it.

And I actually think that does make a difference.

And so she has been gifted that.

And she declared in that which she declared that it was paid promotion,

but she was actually wasn't actually paid.

So that's a clarification from Monday's episode.

Quick recommendation from me.

I watched a comedy special over the weekend that made me laugh out loud.

It's the new John Mulaney special.

Have you guys heard of this?

It's called Baby Jane.

Is he that really like preppy dude who broke up with his wife?

He did a whole show about having a baby and how what a good duty was.

And then he had an affair and run off.

Is that him?

And not that I'm saying that makes him an awkward dude.

I'm not judging.

And what I love is when someone has had their reputation irreparably damaged

and then they come out and acknowledge it in the first five minutes.

I've had a weird couple of years.

You've had a weird couple of years.

I didn't want to come out all phony, you know, you're like,

Hey, Boston, it's time to laugh.

Raise up your smiles, lower those masks.

You know what I mean.

We all quarantined.

We all went to rehab and we all got divorced.

And now our reputation is different.

He was like, things have changed.

No one likes me and everyone likes Bo Burnham, which is very.

He had a lot of issues with addiction.

He went to rehab and he just dives in and tells you the whole story.

The most mortifying things he did.

He reads out this article that he did with GQ while he was high on something.

It doesn't make any sense.

And the way in which he can look at it and go,

this is the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen.

I cannot believe I let this happen is so self-deprecating.

And you realize that celebrities are kind of in on the ridiculousness.

Do I have to watch the first one?

OK, no, it's funny.

He's really, really funny.

And it's just a fascinating story and you'll get a lot out of it.

So it's called Baby J by John Mulaney, and it's on Netflix.

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And on yesterday's episode, we talked about friendship

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And we give the juicy details in this episode

of our most impactful friendship breakdown.

I've had a few messages about it.

Yeah, people say they're having a cry in the shower.

Left us mortified, devastated, confused, heartbroken.

There was a great article on Mum Mia this week by Charlotte Rhee,

who you interviewed for No Filter.

And she writes in her brand new book really candidly

about a friendship breakup.

And we talk about what that actually entails and how it feels.

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Thank you for listening to today's Mum and Mia Out Loud.

The executive producer of this episode is Telyssa Bazaas

with Audio Production from Leah Porges

and Assistant Production from Susanna Makin.

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