Mamamia Out Loud: We Can’t Agree About Prince Harry’s Court Appearance

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Mamma Mia out loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud.

It's what women are talking about on Wednesday, the 7th of June.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Jessie Stevens.

And I'm Elfie Scott, filling in for Mia.

Now I'm going to throw you, Elfie Scott, a couple of quick getting to know you questions.

Horrifying.

No, because you have filled in a couple of times and out loud and you're going to be

filling in obviously for Mia while she's away, so out louders need to get to know you a little

bit.

I promise not to make them too personal, but we're starting with one of the most personal

ones.

How old are you?

I'm 30 recently.

And are we feeling good about 30?

No, I'm feeling very conflicted about 30.

I feel like I'm deeply immature and not prepared for my 30s.

That's normal.

That's normal.

Okay, yeah, having a terrible time.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Sydney.

Yes, so you were a Sydney person.

And what did you do before you came to work at Mum and Mia?

I was freelancing for a couple of years, just presenting, journalism and writing a book.

Is Elfie your full name?

No, it's actually not my legal name.

I will not tell anybody what my legal name is.

I was asking because I like the name Elfie and I've got a little girl coming and I've

been looking at it going, it's a very beautiful name.

Are you going to call your first born child after Mia?

After Elfie, middle name Scott.

Oh my God.

Could you bloody imagine?

Oh my God.

I think it's a beautiful name and you just invented it or is it short for something?

Well, okay, so it came about because I had pointy years when I was a baby, so they started

calling me Elfie.

Oh, that's cute.

That's moved into Elfie.

Yeah.

Oh, I love the name Elfie.

I love this.

Oh my God, this is huge for me.

You're like Madonna.

You're like Madonna.

Thanks, Jesse.

In many ways.

In many ways.

Before I got to know each other just a little bit better.

We have.

Also, before we get started today, I have to tell you out loud, I'll just be short to

know I'm not 30.

Like, I'm not.

I look 30.

I'm not 30, which is why I'm the one telling you about the Very Perry audio series, which

has just dropped.

Now, some of you would remember the Very Perry Summit that we ran last year and it was all

about Perry menopause, the things that no one tells you.

We had lots of experts talking about everything from sex drive to weight gain to mood swings.

Anyway, lots of people told us that they wanted it in audio form because then they

could multitask busy, busy people and it is that is now how you can get it.

And there's some new content in there too, but we'll put a link in the show notes to

anyone who wants to listen to Very Perry rather than watch.

It's now an audio series.

And on the show today, Prince Harry is taking the stand in a London courtroom on his full

blown mission to check notes.

Oh, save journalism.

Our conflicted feelings about his crusade plus Seah, you might remember that she had

quite a controversial film out two years ago called Music and it was about autism.

Well, Seah in the last week has come out and said she has her own autism diagnosis.

Does that change anything?

And the friendship dilemma that asks, am I the problem?

But first, in case you missed it, Love Island UK is back.

Now, clearly I have never and will never watch that.

It's not my thing.

It's more your thing, Jesse, really.

It is and three million people watched it, like a lot of people watch it.

I think I need to get into this because everyone says it's amazing.

Whenever we run content on it on Momma Mia, everybody jumps on.

It's like a bit of a guilty pleasure show, I think.

Anyway, the reason that we're talking about it is turkey teeth apparently there is somebody

on Love Island who was explicit about one of the things she's looking for in her type

of partner is turkey teeth, which led everybody to go, what the fuck, a turkey?

I thought it was, I imagined a turkey and then I tried to imagine their teeth and I went,

is there a particular shape of a turkey tooth, a sharp tooth?

What is it?

But it's not to do with turkey, the animal.

Is that?

I thought exactly the same thing.

It's to do with turkey, the country.

And turkey teeth refers to the fact that in Britain in particular, a lot of people go

to Turkey to get cheap or cheaper cosmetic procedures, including a lot of dental work.

So to be fair, my type is pretty boys.

Pretty.

Yeah, with turkey teeth.

Turkey teeth.

Yeah, I love turkey teeth.

No, I'm not looking for someone specifically with turkey teeth.

Like if you've got nice teeth, then that's fine.

But if you've got turkey teeth, it's a bonus.

I read an article about this recently that was so amazing.

It had these photos of people on these planes from Turkey to London or Turkey to Birmingham

or wherever, people covered in bandages and in various states of recovery.

But turkey teeth specifically refers to a full dental job.

So, you know, a full new set of teeth, but like looking very bling, very new,

very possibly a bit cheap.

To be clear, she was saying that she wanted this in a part, right?

Turkey teeth is something she's looking for.

So bizarre.

I will say that I looked up turkey teeth because I believe the same thing.

I thought it was about cartoon turkeys with teeth and I could not picture it.

But it came with a Google image like barrage of photos of people who had their teeth

filed down before the venues.

And I don't know if you've seen people who have photos before the venues actually go on,

but the teeth are terrifying.

Yeah, it is such a living nightmare.

And so whenever I see turkey teeth now, I am just thinking of those tiny little teeth

with the little helmets on top.

What I love about this story, though, is that it reminds us that human attraction,

sexual attraction is actually really complicated and that we're all going to

Turkey to try and make ourselves look perfect.

Or in Australia, I know that there's a similar thing, whether it's Thailand or Bali,

to get boobs or to get nose job.

But really, we like the weirdest things in each other.

Like it's true.

I love a misshapen nose or like a gummy smile or something.

And yet we're spending all this money to try and look exactly the same.

I know.

Look, with my current teeth problems, which I have bored out loud as with a little bit,

I may yet need turkey teeth.

And we are just all going to hold hands and agree to never mention it when I come in

with my bright white veneers.

I hope that you have someone reach out.

Turkey teeth, the company will reach out and offer you free turkey teeth.

Let's talk about Royals, please.

Let's talk about Harry and Megs.

Let's talk about all the good things and the good things that make them.

Let's talk about Royals.

The Prince versus the Paper.

An unprecedented legal battle has begun in which Prince Harry is taking on his

lifelong tormentors, the tabloid press.

He said your behaviour was vile and unjustified.

What do you think?

I didn't see it.

But I wish him luck with his privacy campaign.

Look forward to reading in his next book.

Prince Harry is in court again.

And this time he's fighting to, quote unquote, save journalism as a profession.

Harry is speaking as part of his witness statements in the phone hacking court case

against Mirror Group newspapers.

Now, he told the High Court that our country, as in Britain, is judged globally

by the state of our press and our government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom.

Oh, Harry is telling it like it is.

Yeah, so he's using these appearances to talk about how Rishi Sunak's government

is at rock bottom and is able to avoid scrutiny supposedly by getting in bed

with friendly newspapers.

He wants to see that bond ended.

So if Prince Harry and his three fellow claimants win this case,

it will set the level of damages MGN may be forced to pay in other cases

brought by a hundred other public figures.

So as this case goes on and these witness statements continue, what we know is this.

Prince Harry has openly declared it is his life's work, suddenly,

to change the culture of tabloid media.

So we are very conflicted about this story.

Holly, particularly, has big opinions.

And as our royal correspondent, could you please walk us through what your feelings are?

I was thinking this morning when I was reading this story on the train into work,

I was thinking there is no celebrity or public figure who I am as conflicted about as Prince Harry.

Because on the surface of things, right, he is right.

The most powerful people in our world are media moguls, right?

They're more powerful than presidents and prime ministers.

Old-fashioned ones like Rupert Murdoch and modern day ones like Mark Zuckerberg

are really the ones who get presidents and prime ministers elected or not.

That's why leaders suck up to them.

That's why there's all kinds of toxic corruption going on between the two of them.

It's all true.

Harry is on the side of right.

The tabloid culture specifically that he is talking about and has been

the victim of since he was born is awful.

There is no question about that, right?

Particularly in the time frame that he's talking about, it was the Wild West.

His phone was hacked.

There was a whole lot of leaking going on.

He has been hounded.

His mother was hounded.

He and his wife have been hounded.

It's all true, true, true, true, true, right?

I'm feeling such a big butt looping over this conversation.

Why is there another big part of me that can't read these stories without rolling my eyes

and being like, oh, you're here to save journalism?

Because they're written by the very tabloids he's suing, aren't they?

Well, this is a very good point, right?

This is a battle that he can never win because the people reporting it are his enemies.

But I'm smarter than that, Jesse, right?

I can see through a filter of tabloid sort of disdain.

And I can also read publications that he's not suing like The Guardian.

But is it because I listen to him say, I have decided it's my job to save journalism

and sort out this toxic corrosive culture and think, who do you think you are?

And is that because of my own prejudices about the ultimate rich and privileged people,

the royal family have to be among those people, right?

He has been protected.

As well as he's been hounded, he has been protected and offered every opportunity throughout

his life that most people who are dealt a shitty hand do not get.

But again, not really relevant in this situation.

Is it because he and Megan, I have much more beef with him than Megan,

as people who have multi-million dollar deals with publishing houses, Netflix, Spotify,

are kind of part of the media too and need the media to promote the things that they

want to do to make the world a better place.

So do I rob against that?

Or am I just a bitch?

Jesse Stevens.

He is the only person who can do this.

He is the only man.

Born for it.

He is born for it.

He is the only royal to stand trial and actually speak in a courtroom since the 1890s or something.

Famously never sue until Harry came along.

The royals famously did not sue, which was one of the reasons why you could say whatever

the fuck you want.

Exactly.

Interesting.

And so he has grown up in a context where every friendship, every relationship, his

siblings, his girlfriends, everything has been underpinned by this paranoia and distrust

because of leaking.

The news of the world and the phone hacking thing for Prince Harry was never settled.

And in fact, for so many people was never settled.

If you look at that case, people are like, oh, that happened years ago.

For a few people, maybe justice was served, but not really.

And there's a lot of unanswered questions.

They closed that newspaper almost like a scapegoat.

Yeah.

We'll throw that one under the bus while continuing all these other practices over here with a

little more rigor around them because some laws were changed.

So the question for Harry is, why is he doing this?

And I think whenever you go to court and then what happens in that courtroom gets reported,

it's like, oh, will you shut up?

And it's like, well, that is how a court works.

Like he has to go and ask questions.

It's going to be ongoing.

We're going to see a lot more.

But the reason he is doing this is not for money.

There's no way he'll come out of this on top.

He also doesn't need anymore.

He doesn't need any more money and he can afford this in a way that other celebrities

probably can't.

The reason is this is the only way he can get the answers he wants, which is that journalists

who work for a lot of these publications are like, well, we hired private investigators

and we found out maybe the chef leaked it and maybe this person leaked it and whatever.

And he's like, no, no, tell me who leaked it.

And what is it that the private investigators can do that you as an investigative journalist

cannot?

And that to me is a really interesting question because I think there's something illegal

there.

And if he can prove it, then the floodgates will open for so many public people to go,

this happened to me, this happened to me.

And just because you're rich and famous doesn't mean that you deserve to have every relationship

in your life questioned and undermined.

Yes, 100%.

And I think that touches on a really interesting point.

So jumping back to what you were saying earlier, Holly.

Part of me sort of recoils from this story, I think because there's just been so much

oversaturation of Harry and Meghan's stories, but what I would say about this story specifically

is that it seems to be the first kind of thing where Harry can set a precedent for other

people, which is really interesting.

So you know, you had the book, you had the documentary, you had all of the publicity

around breaking from the royal family.

And that was all very self-serving, it was all about his own narrative.

But actually entering like a court case is very interesting because at least it proves

some usefulness for other people in the future, right?

It sets a precedent.

And this is why I think his mother would be very proud.

And we've got a teenager who all of a sudden everyone went, we think this guy is your father

and questioned his parent.

Like the trauma.

Yeah, of course.

But also his mother played the game.

This is why the media hates Harry so much is that all the other royals hate the media

too, but they've gone, this is the system, the system's screwed, but we've got to play

the game.

So Diana did sit down with newspaper editors, entertain them, have them around for lunch,

leak things about Charles, leak things about Camilla, leak things about where she was going

to be at a certain time, looking a certain way, because she thought I'm going to play

the system.

Harry is the first one to have the balls, basically, gender term, you know what I mean?

Bravery.

I think it's really brave.

To go, no, I'm not accepting the system.

But the thing is, and this is why it grates on me a bit, is it's like years of his life,

he's sitting in a courtroom talking about a story that was leaked about a haircut he

had when he was eaten when he was 14, and then a fight he had with his girlfriend.

And then the journalist saying, well, actually, it was your girlfriend's dad who told us that.

And he's like, oh, I mean, it's just, it all seems so petty.

I think what they've done, because there's hundreds of stories as an example, and so

they've chosen specific stories.

If Harry can prove that he was having his phone tapped and that it was done by illegal

means, then I think this is an absolute bombshell call case and really worth it.

Well, it's so few granted that before him.

I agree.

Like, I don't mean to sound like I'm dismissing what he's doing, because again, this is where

the conflict comes in.

I admire it.

But Britain, the journalists will tell you actually have one of the more regulated media

systems than lots of other places, right?

So there are lots of laws in place in Britain about what you can and can't take pictures

of with the Royals, what perhaps can take pictures of and where and all those things

that don't necessarily apply in places like America.

And thanks in large part to people like Hugh Grant, who he proved that the news of the

world was hacking his phone and William and Harry's phone.

So I think that's another thing is it feels like, but he won't stop and he won't stop

and he won't stop.

And I respect it.

But also it's the he's incredibly ideological and in some ways naive about how these things

work.

And he needs people who are ideological to come along and go, I understand this is how

it works.

I don't think this is how it should work.

And talking about the paranoia of Diana, I think he's come out and said, was that paranoia

or was it that she assumed that this really private intimate conversation she had with

the closest person in her life that she'd been betrayed and that this completely destroyed

her life?

Mental health, her relationships.

We are not done.

And he's saying we're not done.

Justice has not been served, which I agree with him there, but I'm really curious as

to how this is going to turn out.

I think it's brave.

Definitely is brave.

Hi, this is Anne from the Gold Coast.

This is a comment on Jesse's baby name.

My second child, we found out that we were having a boy.

We decided to call him Carl and I just kept looking at him by the name of Carl, sent out

the text messages to all the friends and family.

Two days later, I just said to my husband, this is not a Carl.

So we sent out a new text message to all of our friends and family.

We used to say, sorry, one name, this is now Brett, he's 14 now and loves to hear the story

and sometimes asks me to just call him Carl.

Australian musician, Seya, last week shared that she is on the autism spectrum.

You probably know her from songs like Chandelier and Unstoppable, but she's also written for

Rihanna, Katy Perry and Beyonce.

And she's famously known as the artist who covers her face with like a blonde bob or a

big bow or a hat.

She's done that for the last 12 years or so with a few exceptions, but it's because she's

quite uncomfortable with the spectacle of fame.

And she said, I don't want to be recognizable.

She famously wrote, if anyone besides famous people knew what it was like to be a famous

person, they would never want to be famous.

Back to Prince Harry.

But the reason I find the news of her autism diagnosis interesting is because of the film

she released back in 2021, which was met with a great deal of criticism called music.

She can understand everything you are saying to her.

And if you are happy, press this.

I'm Chad.

Very funny troublemaker.

He sees the world in a completely different way from us.

Music was a film starring Maddie Zygler.

She's like a Seya prodigy, right?

Yes.

Seya's most famous video.

She's toured with her.

And she was a teenager at the time and she portrayed this protagonist who also had autism.

She didn't have autism herself.

And there was a big argument, a discussion at the time about whether or not that was

appropriate.

That we probably know of.

Yes.

When Seya was asked why she didn't cast an autistic actor, she said that she tried to,

but the person she cast found it unpleasant and stressful.

So that's why I cast Maddie.

And when autistic actors came forward and said, I could have played the role, Seya famously

responded on Twitter, maybe you're just a bad actor.

She's since apologized for those remarks.

I think she went off Twitter after that.

Yeah.

I'm surprised.

That is a kid for a while.

Jesus.

And accepted there were flaws in the film.

She actually changed parts of the film and the National Autism Association described

particular scenes as dangerous and abusive.

And she acknowledged she could have done more research in the years since she said that

the fallout made her suicidal and led her to a rehab facility.

And enormous part of the criticism was that she sort of hadn't done her due diligence.

She hadn't spoken to enough people in the community.

And that Seya herself was an autistic and the project needed more expert input.

So here's the question that I've been grappling with.

Does Seya coming out with an autism diagnosis change anything about that film?

Did she have more authority on that topic than we realized at the time?

Or can people who belong to a certain identity still make irresponsible or bad art?

What do you reckon, Alfie?

So before we dive into this, I think that it is worth noting straight off the bat that

Seya has not tried to use her autism diagnosis to try and sort of quash any of the criticism.

But we will say that overwhelmingly autism advocates are speaking out about this.

They're drawing the line between the last time that Seya made headlines around the world.

Now this diagnosis and they are saying that it does nothing to sort of detract from the

criticism of music, which was abhorrent in many, many ways.

Did you watch it?

I watched bits of it.

I never watched the entire movie, but I've seen clips that are hugely problematic.

So like there's terrible representation in it.

There's representation of music being restrained in ways that autistic children should not be.

There's a lot of offensive parts of it.

I think that it brings up some really interesting questions.

I would say like overwhelmingly, we should say that like, no, this doesn't do anything

for the criticism of the movie, but maybe it changes kind of like the philosophical

quality of the art.

Maybe in retrospect, there is something interesting to look at in Seya's choice to make a movie

about autism to begin with.

We actually published a really interesting article by a woman called Alina Flitchik.

I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that correctly.

I'm probably not, but she was also diagnosed with autism as an adult and she said something

really interesting about ableism and her own reflections on autism.

So basically she said that she had the same kind of like ableist outlook that Seya did

as an adult.

You know, she used to look at people who have more severe cases of autism and she used to

recoil and think it was cringy and now that she has an autism diagnosis, she kind of looks

at that very differently.

So I think overall, Seya put her foot in it, she made some bad choices, she made some

shitty art, but maybe there are interesting like deeper philosophical questions to look

at with the movie is what I would say.

I feel like Seya is carrying the can for that film in every single way, right?

There were Hollywood mega stars in that movie.

Kate Hudson was in it, right?

Leslie Odom Jr.

Leslie Odom Jr. from Hamilton was in it.

The budget would have been huge.

Like the spectacle of it, the art direction, the original songs.

It's not like Seya sat in a room and made a video.

Do you know what I mean?

Like...

But wasn't it her vision?

Yeah, it's her vision.

And when it is your vision, then ultimately the book stops with you.

But that movie would have taken years as well, right?

And so many stakeholders at so many times signing off on so many things and making all

these decisions and none of them saw this storm coming that came and killed that movie

the minute that the trailer came out and Seya started speaking.

It's a moment in time that was not predicted.

And from the lens of autism advocates, that is a triumph, right?

Because it's saying for years you were just putting us in inverted commas in movies because

you thought it was entertaining, Rain Man, classic example, a long time ago.

But still, that was the first time that a great number of people had ever heard the

word autism and saw that depiction by Dustin Hoffman, who is not autistic, and went, oh,

that's what autism is.

It's the guy who can count cards and mutters in a corner and they went, oh, you know.

And we all know that people of varied abilities have been portrayed in movies and in art of

all kinds that made them deeply uncomfortable and all those things.

And nobody gave a shit.

And music came out at exactly the moment when the voice is loud enough to roar and it roared

at Seya specifically.

And she was crushed by that, right?

She has been absolutely crushed by that.

She's pretty much disappeared.

She spent a couple of years since then licking her wounds, working herself out.

She got married.

She's lying low.

She's richer than God, right?

She's written some enormous songs.

So she has a very privileged position of being able to kind of retreat and figure that out.

It is really worth noting as you did, Elfie, that she didn't come out on this podcast,

which randomly was about survivor and say, I have autism and therefore I was coming

from a particular place with this.

I think it's really tricky because then I've seen a lot of the vitriol directed at her

as if that is what she said.

And that's not what she said.

She didn't say, so all of you people who criticized me were wrong because I know what I'm talking

about.

I haven't seen music.

I don't want to see it.

I'm not interested in seeing it, having read all the criticism.

I believe that it probably was a movie that should never have been made.

But I do think it's unfortunate that this enormous cancellation of Sia is kind of all

just directed at her and it doesn't matter what she does and it doesn't matter what

she says and it doesn't matter what understanding she may have gained since or has now.

She is bad with a capital B and I do struggle with that a bit.

Me too.

And I found the vitriol in response to her diagnosis really uncomfortable.

So for example, I was looking at some of the commentary and the instinct of a lot of people

in the community is to say, no, you don't.

You don't have autism.

Which I hate that and I just think it's like, I don't think you know how much damage you're

actually doing to the community by denying that.

I understand people who think that there's an implication there that she's trying to

say, okay, maybe we look at this film through a different prism.

I think that when you make art, the question is as well if the job of it is to be responsible

or helpful.

I think about people that I know who might live with schizophrenia or they might live

with an intellectual disability.

They can say profoundly ableist things and it's like that's when identity politics and

political correctness in some ways come into conflict and it's like, how do we then quiet

in those voices or monitor those voices or are they valid in and of themselves?

But the whole see a thing I think as well is about, I don't want to see creators having

to bear their wounds or bear their life stories in order to feel like their art was valid,

which again, I don't think see is necessarily doing here, but I found this in my own stuff.

I've written a book recently where I feel as though I have a certain insight into a certain

thing, but I don't really want to feel like I have to tell everyone why I have that insight

into that thing.

Or represent everything about that.

Exactly.

And then have to say, oh, well, I actually had this experience and I met this person

and I blah and I've been diagnosed with blah.

Like, I don't think that's a role of the artist all the time.

It's just the art needs to be judged on its own merit.

I agree with both of you that music was not art that I particularly appreciated, but in

a world of identity politics, I just wonder how differently the story would have gone

if in 2021 Seah came forward and said, actually, I have autism and therefore don't touch me.

When I was writing my book, I felt like I had to bear my trauma of which I have almost

none for the sake of some sort of legitimacy of narrative.

So I totally relate to Jesse in that.

I just think that the Seah's story, what it tells us is that we are still living in

this kind of like topsy-turvy economy of credibility and identity politics online where belonging

to a minority community, whether that's neurodivergence or having a mental health condition or being

ethnically or culturally diverse, those things can be seen as a defense to being cancelled.

I think that that is so fascinating that you bring that up.

I'm so sorry that I'm carrying on this conversation, but I would love to talk about that more.

I'll cut myself off.

I just have to say though, I get it.

Now we demand that everybody has lived experience of whatever it is they're writing about.

That is problematic in lots of ways.

However, the reason is because until this point, all kinds of people misrepresented all

kinds of experiences that they had no knowledge of and had no experience of and twisted it

in ways that suited their narrative.

And so I totally understand the pushback.

What we're learning though is that you can misrepresent an experience you have.

Of course you can, but works of culture, certainly big budget enormous ones, have a huge impact.

As I was saying before about Rain Man, that was how people learned what autism was.

And so I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be saying, well, do you have any

credentials in this space?

I'd love to know what out louders think.

I'd love to know if they think this changes anything.

And if you feel like you have the right to know the background of the creator when they've

done something that is impactful, really impactful, and you kind of go, okay, well, where's your

expertise in that?

Do we deserve to know?

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.

You might be hearing right now a little jingle where Mia Friedman sings.

We're not going to recreate that today because she's not here and we don't have to.

But I'm either problem is a dilemma from a listener and you can email us one of your

own anytime where you're wondering if you are the problem in your situation.

And this out louder wants to know if they're the bad friend.

So this is what they wrote, I got married in 2021 and I had one of my besties as my

maid of honour.

We were very close.

She would join my family for Christmas and Easter, come to family functions Mother's

Day because her mother had passed away.

The works during the pandemic.

I was her bubble buddy because she was single and lived close by.

You get the drift close.

We were close.

We do.

We get the drift during 2022 while I was trying for a baby.

I had two miscarriages and while my friend wasn't overly supportive, she did have her

own way to show that she cared.

She said flowers and things.

My third pregnancy finally saw me have my beautiful baby girl.

During my pregnancy, there was a definite shift in our friendship, but nothing was ever

said and we still caught up, albeit less regularly.

On the night of my daughter's birth, I sent the standard message picture with name and

weight to my friends and family, to which she wrote back and everything seemed well.

A week after getting home, she messaged me to go out for a coffee and a walk, which I

couldn't do because I had a C-section and then crickets.

Months passed and I heard nothing, not a call, not a visit, not even a short.

How are you doing?

By month five, I messaged her asking if I'd done something.

And she replied, been super busy with work and building a house.

Come for brunch after my Pilates.

And I responded with not even an SMS in five months to see how I am being a new mother.

And she responded with, if your narrative is I'm a bad friend, let's go with that.

And this is where the friendship has ended.

Am I the problem?

Am I being too precious to think that my maid of honour would check in to see how I'm coping?

Is busy really a good excuse after five months with no contact when you live five minutes away?

Okay, who's going first on this one?

Jesse, I feel like this is relevant to you perhaps more than anybody else in the room right now.

I can sort of see both sides of this.

A baby changes the nature and the dynamic of a female friendship unlike anything else.

I think it throws a bomb up and it pushes you into two completely different life stages.

I think there's an undertone about her friend being busy with the house and work that it's kind of like busy, you're busy.

You can be really busy when you don't have a baby and you can have really valid problems and concerns and all of that,

which I just feel like needs to be put on the table.

Too busy to physically send a text in five months though, like come on.

Something's going on there.

Something's going on with the text and there's a few readings of it.

The first is that I think that when a friend falls pregnant or you know that they're at home with a baby,

you kind of can feel like your status in the pecking order has really fallen down and that can really hurt people's feelings.

You can also think, well, we can't do any of the things we used to do.

So what is our friendship now?

And I have empathy for that.

I think she should have messaged and I think that especially like a C-section is major surgery.

It's like even just dropping things over and all that kind of stuff.

A lot of friendships fall to the wayside in this period because there's also a sense of, well, do you want to see me?

Or are you so busy that it will look insensitive?

Like even her reaching out and saying, let's go for a walk and a coffee.

And it's like, well, I've just had a C-section.

It's like, did she feel like that was such a shutdown of that offering that she went, oh, well, maybe don't worry about it.

And I've felt this and I look back now and I go, I could have been such a better friend.

But I just didn't understand and I thought that they wanted to be left alone.

And then the friendship fizzles and it's really sad.

And now being on the cusp of this new life stage, I absolutely regret that.

And I wish that I had more understanding and empathy.

But I get that there's this kind of, it's like a wall that is built up sometimes between women who have kids and women who don't.

And like, they don't speak the same language anymore.

Have you experienced that, Elfie?

I've seen it in friends, definitely.

And I've seen this kind of resentment build up and like that wall go up for sure.

But I would say also, like this topic brings up more than just the difference between mothers and people who aren't mothers, right?

I think that this brings up bigger discussions about female friendship and expectations of that in general.

Because from my perspective, say, I grew up with a group of like three girls who I'm very, very close to, like almost like romantically close.

Like my best friend and I slept in the same bed for years and years and years, like whenever we were staying over at each other's houses.

And I think for women, you do have this kind of rubbing up of expectations sometimes where people can feel like friends are just friends and like they kind of move in and out of people's eyes.

Whereas other people can feel like you have like almost that partner level lifelong romantic kind of connection.

And I totally appreciate that.

And I love that.

And I agree with it.

But I do think that when babies come into the mix, partners come into the mix, it can get very, very complicated.

And I think that it's very hard to communicate to your friends what your expectations are and like how much you need people to be in your life.

So I think that's kind of where this argument is lying.

Like, I agree.

I think they're probably both in the wrong.

If you go five months without either of you cracking and sending a text, like you probably both have a little bit too much pride.

But I do think that there are like broader topics that have come into this.

I think controversial, but sometimes friendship just needs a break.

I don't know if I'm a terrible friend, but there are lots of people in my life who I love, who I just don't get around to texting very often.

Do you know what I mean?

And it's not because I have malice towards them.

It's not because I don't want to hang out with them.

It's just like, I'm busy.

They're busy.

For me, if I'm stressed or there's lots going on and my phone is ping, ping, pinging with messages, that feels like being pecked.

And I would actually rather things were quiet.

Because a lot of people feel the opposite way.

We assume that they want to be left alone and they're actually sitting there going, I'm deep in grief and no one's message.

Yes, and you're so right because that's the tricky bit is like, how do you understand what people want?

And I think that usually my rule of thumb is the person who's going through the big thing, whether it is recovering from a C-section,

or whether it is someone significant in their life has died, or whether it is, you know, a big breakup or whatever, gets to sort of set the terms of the communication.

Sure.

But I didn't have my first baby till I was 38, right?

So I saw all my friends have babies around me and I also have a really tight group of friends who don't have kids.

So I don't buy the two camps situation.

If your friendship is important and you love each other, you'll find a way to make it work.

But I remember when I didn't have kids and my best friend at the time did.

For me, it was like, I love you and I still want you in my life and I still want us to hang around.

But I don't really want to be like dealing with your baby.

It sounds really selfish and awful, but it was true, right?

So I would go and hang out with them.

Of course I would because they would be the only situations in which we would get to see each other and I wanted to see her.

But the terms change.

But my love for her did not necessarily transfer to the baby.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, I like the baby and everything, but like, she's not my chosen person.

You are, you know what I mean?

Sure.

So it's tricky, but I would argue that a five month silence doesn't have to be the end if you don't want it to be.

I've got friends in my life.

Well, maybe this is because I live in a different country than where I grew up and stuff, who I don't see or speak to for eons.

And when I see them, it's brilliant, but you have to want to.

If you're holding on to resentment, that's the difficult bit.

And be honest and open those lines again.

I've had that with friends that I looked back on and they were going through a hard time and I wasn't there enough.

And they've said that and I've gone, oh, I looked at that really differently.

Or your mate might have also been going through something that they haven't told you about entirely.

And so I think that it's absolutely like it can be repaired, but it does change the dynamics of a friendship enormously.

Is she the problem?

I don't think she's the problem, but I think that there's a dynamic here that can be worked out.

I also don't think the other friend is the problem.

And I've had a lot of friends say to me, you will see who your real mates are.

When the baby comes along, a lot of people who say they would be, they disappeared.

And I have never experienced that, but I, but you also might quite want them to do that.

Exactly, leave me alone.

Jesse, you've got a recommendation for us before we go.

So the other morning I woke up and I looked in the mirror and I looked at my eyebrows and I just said that is so offensively bad.

They were just, they were the wrong color.

They were the wrong shape.

I just went, this must be fixed immediately.

And I remembered that Sephora has like a benefit brow bar thing and that you can go and just book online and whatever.

And I remembered, I was like, hang on, I've done that before and they were really good and I'd sort of forgotten.

Anyway, I looked it up 20 minutes, 40 bucks, and I could get an appointment in like an hour.

So ran up, got it done.

And I've had so many compliments because you forget that the person who does it is like a professional.

For a minute, I was like, oh, is she just a Sephora employee who doesn't have training or whatever.

She's just like the 17 year old who sells makeup.

Yeah, but she's really, like really, really good.

So quick.

You can also go pick up your other products.

That was the thing.

I sat there looking at all the benefit products, deciding what I wanted afterwards.

If you are in an absolute rush to get your brows done and you need something really good and reliable,

benefit brow bar, Sephora, highly recommend.

And they're in all the shopping centers and stuff.

So it's really, really easy.

$40 is nothing.

You know how much I spend for my eyebrows?

I get them done in the Eastern suburbs.

I'm a fucking idiot.

They cost $100.

OK, I think I went to the same place before my wedding.

I must say they looked great.

But I couldn't justify it on going.

$100.

I don't think I know.

It's a sickness.

I need to throw in for our regional friends like me.

I don't live within a reach of a Sephora.

So grab your river.

Walk 10 minutes up the road, Holly.

It's not the good or the wrong.

No, no, I'm throwing in that benefit also have heaps of really good at home brow things.

And I use that thousand hours tint, but I also use benefits.

Gimme brow, which like is a gel that sets, but also adds a little bit.

So you can also do it at home.

If you're looking for something else to listen to on yesterday's subscriber segment,

we did another Ask Us Anything episode.

Now, remember, you can ask us anything in Out Loud as whenever you want to,

or you can record a voice note and email it to us.

But we did one yesterday about boundary setting and about sharing on social media.

And most excitingly, perhaps, baby names.

Baby names.

Jessie Stevens revealed that yes, she has one.

Elfie Scott, Elfie Scott Levine.

Exactly, spoilers.

There's a link in the show notes if you want to listen to that.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

Today's episode is very special

because it is the last produced by our brilliant Emma Gillespie.

Emma. Get on the mic immediately, please.

Emma is leaving.

Mama Mia, she is going to a new and exciting job

and we are going to miss her so much because she's bloody brilliant.

She has wrangled all us out loud lunatics.

Can I say that? No, she's she's wrangled all us out loud.

Crazy. No, she's wrangled.

Jessie, Mia and I, which is not an easy thing to do.

And she jumps on the mic to offer opinions

and she hosts true crime conversations and she feels in on the quickie.

She is a legend.

Emma Gillespie, get on the mic and say goodbye to the out loudest.

I love you guys so much.

Oh, I'm I'm absolutely devastated to be leaving you bitches behind.

You have made my life crazy for the last three years

and I wouldn't have it any other way and wouldn't be here without you.

And the beautiful, amazing out louders who I will miss very much.

We're going to miss you so much, Emma.

I don't like her.

She is so, so clever.

We can't wait to see what she does next.

You better still be hanging out in the out loudest group, Emma.

Me and Anne Stevens.

Oh, love it. Love it. Love it.

So thank you to Emma.

Assistant production on today's show has been by Zana Makin

and there's been audio production by Leah Porges and all of you girls make us sound great.

Goodbye. Bye.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.