Pulling a Milli Vanilli: How Pop’s Biggest Scandal Became a Metaphor for Imposter Syndrome Episode #824

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Cathy & Todd revisit the rise and fall of Milli Vanilli, one of pop music’s most infamous scandals, and discuss how their story became a powerful metaphor for imposter syndrome. In the late ’80s, image was everything—style often mattered more than substance. They take a look at what happens when performance is rewarded over honesty, and how that same pressure to “fake it” still shows up today: in parenting, work, and how we see ourselves. From cultural deception to personal doubt, this episode discusses what it means to lose your voice, find it again, and redefine success on your own terms.

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Summary
Milli Vanilli and Imposter Syndrome
Todd and Cathy introduce their podcast “Zen Pop Parenting,” which explores how pop culture can help understand parenting and relationships. They discuss the topic of their current episode, “Pulling a Milli Vanilli: How Pop’s Biggest Scandal Became a Metaphor for Imposter Syndrome.” They provide background on Milli Vanilli, a German-French pop duo consisting of Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, and mention the documentary about them on Paramount Plus. Todd and Kathy plan to discuss the duo’s creation by producer Frank Farion, their scandal, and its relevance to imposter syndrome.
Milli Vanilli: Pop Culture Icons
The discussion focused on the 1980s pop duo Milli Vanilli, their rise to fame, and their impact on music culture. Todd highlighted their stylish image, good looks, and dance moves as key factors in their popularity, while also noting that their songs were a blend of pop and R&B. The conversation then shifted to band names, with Todd and others discussing memorable and sometimes controversial names, including Toad the Wet Sprocket, Smashing Pumpkins, and Panic! at the Disco.
Milli Vanilli: The Vocal Scandal
The discussion focused on the Milli Vanilli scandal, where it was revealed in 1990 that Robin and Fab, the duo’s lead singers, did not perform their own vocals, despite winning the Grammy for Best New Artist that year. The scandal unfolded during a live MTV performance when the backing track skipped, leading to one member fleeing the stage before being coerced to return. The conversation explored how the duo became scapegoats for systemic issues in the music industry, with the real singers kept anonymous while the public faced the fallout, and highlighted broader themes about authenticity in pop music that influenced the rise of grunge.
Music Industry Authenticity Shift
Todd discussed the contractual issues faced by various artists, including Jojo, Prince, and TLC, highlighting the challenges they encountered due to label disputes. He also mentioned the cultural context of the late 1980s, including the AIDS crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rise of pop culture icons like Madonna and the Simpsons. Todd emphasized the shift from escapist, image-focused music to a return to authenticity in the music industry, using Milli Vanilli as a prime example of this pendulum swing.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Todd discussed his experience with imposter syndrome, sharing that he still feels nervous when leading men’s groups despite his success in podcasting. He emphasized the difference between feeling nervous and experiencing imposter syndrome, and highlighted that many successful people, including Neil Patrick Harris, have faced similar feelings of inadequacy despite their achievements. Todd also reflected on his career journey, noting that he no longer needs to be the one with all the answers and is open to learning from others.
Milli Vanilli’s Impact on Pop Culture
Todd discussed the inclusion of Milli Vanilli’s music in the “Pam and Tommy” show, clarifying that it was an acted series rather than a documentary. He highlighted the use of the duo’s songs in conjunction with high-profile events like the O.J. Simpson trial and the Menendez brothers case, noting the meta aspect of using songs that were popular during these events. Todd also shared insights about the documentary exposing the lack of vocal credits for Rob and Fab on the album “All or Nothing,” which he found alarming. He reflected on the music industry’s focus on sales and image over talent, and mentioned the Grammys revoking Milli Vanilli’s award. Additionally, Todd touched on the concept of imposter syndrome, its origins, and its relevance to individuals who feel out of place in environments not designed for them.
Music Authenticity and Tragic Stories
Todd discussed the inauthentic practices of some music artists in the 1980s and 1990s, including Milli Vanilli, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and C & C Music Factory, where vocalists were often uncredited or not paid for their work. He also shared that Rob Diner, a member of the group Rob & Fab, struggled with drug addiction and died from an accidental overdose. Todd expressed sympathy for Fab, who managed to overcome personal challenges and learn to sing. He concluded by connecting Milli Vanilli’s music to the Menendez brothers case, noting that the brothers listened to the band’s music before and after committing their parents’ murders.
Exploring Celebrities’ Deception and Impact
Todd discussed the Menendez brothers’ case, highlighting how their wealthy background and alleged abuse influenced their actions, and drew parallels to other cases like Milli Vanilli, emphasizing deception and societal expectations. He explored the concept of imposter syndrome, explaining its characteristics and how it relates to the human tendency to confess secrets, using examples such as James Frey and Lance Armstrong. Todd also discussed the case of Elizabeth Holmes, noting the complexities of her situation, including allegations of fraud and the impact of her actions on others, while considering factors like misogyny and personal history.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Todd discussed imposter syndrome, explaining that it affects high achievers due to social comparison, internalized messages, gender bias, perfectionism, and lack of representation. He highlighted how women often face more imposter syndrome due to societal expectations and shared insights from Amy Poehler’s podcast about embracing imperfection. Todd also touched on parenting, noting that children learn more from observing their parents’ handling of failures than from listening to advice. He reflected on the impact of curated perfection in music, comparing artists like Madonna and Milli Vanilli, and concluded with a discussion on Bruce Springsteen’s approach to authenticity in his music.
Parenting and Imposter Syndrome
Todd and his partner discussed the challenges of parenting and the phenomenon of imposter syndrome in this context. They explored various aspects of imposter syndrome in parenting, including feeling like one is not doing enough, second-guessing choices, avoiding conversations about parenting, and overcompensating with perfectionism. They also touched on the importance of self-compassion as a solution to imposter syndrome and the need to model self-compassion for children.
Authenticity and Vulnerability in Leadership
Todd shared reflections on authenticity, accountability, and the challenges of balancing confidence and vulnerability, particularly for women. He emphasized the importance of being true to oneself and highlighted how societal expectations and imposter syndrome can hinder personal growth. Todd also discussed a cringeworthy media moment involving a press conference, where individuals were unfairly pressured to prove their abilities, underscoring the need for better media training and support in difficult situations.
Milli Vanilli: Lessons in Resilience
Todd and his co-host discussed the impact of the music duo Milli Vanilli, focusing on Rob and Fab’s experiences and the lessons learned from their rise and fall. They shared quotes and reflections on topics like imposter syndrome, self-worth, and the pressure of public expectations. Todd highlighted the importance of resilience and reinvention, referencing Rob’s tragic death and Fab’s journey to redemption. They also played a music game, selecting songs that captured the vibe of their discussion, and concluded by emphasizing the message of perseverance.

Blog Post

Unveiling the Saga of Milli Vanilli: Pop Culture, Scandal, and Imposter Syndrome

This episode from Zen Pop Parenting dives deep into the story of Milli Vanilli, famously known as pop’s biggest scandal turned metaphor for imposter syndrome. Through an engaging dialogue between hosts Todd Adams and Cathy Kani Adams, the episode takes listeners on a journey through the rise and fall of Milli Vanilli, reflecting on the era’s pop culture and paralleling it with the complexities of imposter syndrome.

Setting the Scene: A Nostalgic Leap into the Late ’80s

The hosts begin by setting the scene, recalling the cultural landscape of the late 1980s when Milli Vanilli, the German-French R&B pop duo, took the world by storm. Comprised of Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, the duo was styled and managed by Frank Farian and achieved meteoric success with hits like “Girl You Know It’s True.” Their stylish image and catchy tunes dominated MTV, encapsulating the flashy excesses of the era.

The documentary mentioned, available on Paramount Plus, serves as a reference point for the hosts, offering insights into Frank Farian’s past and the machinery behind manufactured music acts. The podcast delves into the public persona of Milli Vanilli, revealing how the duo became emblematic of the decade’s emphasis on image over authenticity.

Unmasking the Scandal

The narrative intensifies as the podcast discusses the unraveling of Milli Vanilli’s fame. In 1990, it was discovered that Rob and Fab did not sing on their own records, a revelation which led to public outrage. The hosts explore the infamous MTV incident where their performance tape skipped, exposing their lip-syncing. Despite initial backlash, the audience remained largely indifferent at first, with lip-syncing being a common practice during live performances. However, the producers’ subsequent confession and blackmail attempts by actual vocalists brought the truth to light, amplifying the scandal’s impact.

Cathy and Todd Adams critically examine the industry mechanisms that contributed to this spectacle, highlighting how systemic issues and media narratives allowed the duo to bear the brunt of the scandal, while the masterminds remained largely unscathed.

Navigating Imposter Syndrome

The episode seamlessly transitions into a discussion on imposter syndrome, likening Milli Vanilli’s experiences to this pervasive psychological phenomenon. Both hosts share personal anecdotes, illustrating how imposter syndrome affects individuals in various domains, from parenting to professional achievements. They emphasize the detrimental effects of societal expectations, cultural biases, and internalized messages on self-perception and self-worth.

In exploring the origins of the term, coined in 1978, they highlight its universality, initially studied among high-achieving women but applicable to all genders. They reflect on their own experiences of self-doubt and the ongoing internal dialogue of questioning one’s competence despite evidence of success.

A Broader Cultural Reflection

The conversation also touches upon broader cultural shifts, noting how the Milli Vanilli scandal coincided with a changing musical landscape that yearned for authenticity, leading to the rise of grunge. The hosts ponder the peculiar intersection between Milli Vanilli, the Menendez brothers’ case, and other pop culture phenomena, drawing parallels between public perceptions and media portrayals of scandal and deception.

The podcast concludes on a note of resilience, with Cathy and Todd Adams emphasizing the capacity for recovery and reinvention post-failure. They suggest that while image and success can be fleeting, authenticity and self-awareness provide a lasting foundation for personal and professional fulfillment.

Reflecting on the Legacy

The tale of Milli Vanilli serves as a cautionary tale about authenticity in the music industry while doubling as a poignant narrative on imposter syndrome and societal pressures. As the podcast illustrates, embracing one’s true self, complete with vulnerabilities, is key to overcoming the pervasive feeling of inadequacy that imposter syndrome brings.

In weaving together cultural history, personal insights, and psychological reflections, Zen Pop Parenting offers listeners a compelling analysis of how a pop music scandal continues to echo in contemporary conversations about identity, success, and authenticity.

Transcript

[00:00:00]

So what are you doing back? Well, I sat back and thought about the things we used to do. It really meant a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. I really mean that much to you, girl. You know it’s true.

Todd: How long should I let it play for?

Cathy: That’s about it. I think people know it’s true. People recognize that beginning.

Todd: Yeah. Uh, we’re gonna talk a lot about, uh, talk a lot about that song and this group. And one thing I will say, uh, ’cause I’m sure we’ll talk about the producer. His name’s Frank.

Cathy: Yeah. Frank Farian.

Todd: Um, he, he knew how to like drop a beat.

Cathy: He sure did. He didn’t do our clapping.

Todd: Oh, sorry. I [00:01:00] always forget about the clapping. Um, that means

Cathy: we’re getting going,

Todd: uh, starting

Cathy: this conversation. Um, Todd, you gotta have like the board. I don’t really understand how to produce so I can’t Wrong one.

Todd: I, I’m still not sure why we do the clapping.

Cathy: I just, it’s like a way to like, move in from whatever we’re talking about to our conversation. ’cause we don’t really play theme music per se. Right. So clapping is like the topic

Todd: is our theme music. So you’re, you’re saying our new theme music is this. Ah,

Cathy: because it’s a pop show, you know, people clap. I think we

Todd: might need to work on that.

Cathy: I like it.

Todd: Um, hi everybody, my name’s Todd Adams. I’m with Zen Pop Parenting and across the table for me is Kathy Kani Adams, also from Zen Pop Parenting. Will you give the folks, uh, what the title is of this podcast? Sure.

Cathy: Well, as you said, the title is Zen Pop Parenting, but it’s where Gen X pop culture meets real life reflection.

Cathy: This [00:02:00] show is about how talking about the music, movies and TV of our time helps us better understand and bring meaning to our parenting, our relationships, and most importantly, ourselves. We understand ourselves better. So

Todd: I actually meant to say, what’s the topic of this podcast?

Cathy: Oh, I see. That’s okay.

Cathy: Today we are gonna talk about, we’re gonna call it Pulling a Milli Vanilli. How Pop’s Biggest Scandal became a metaphor. For imposter syndrome.

Todd: All right. Should we just jump in and set the scene? Let’s do it.

Cathy: What are you saying? It’s not very loud in my earphones. It sounds really soft. There we go. Thank you.

Todd: Better? Better?

Cathy: Yes. Much.

Todd: Um, all right, so let’s set the scene. Um, I’m gonna let you start and then I’m gonna jump in.

Cathy: Okay. So I thought and set the scene. We do two things. Talk about Milli [00:03:00] Vanilli, who they were, and also what was going on in our world, our country at that time, because they are connected, they overlap.

Cathy: Uh, milli Vanilli, it’s a German French r and b pop duo. It’s consists of Rob, uh. Pilates,

Todd: let’s just call him Rob

Cathy: and Fab Morvan. So we’ll just call ’em Robin Fan. Uh, Rob and Fab here on out. Uh, they were created literally and managed by a German music producer named Frank Farian. Uhhuh. So Todd and I just watched a, um, documentary, documentary all about this stuff.

Cathy: Did you finish it?

Todd: I know you watched it before it

Cathy: before, so I did not finish it. And it should, you know, for you, it’s gonna be more fresh in your head. Yeah, but I remember what, there’s a

Todd: handful amount there. This one was really good. And it’s on Paramount Plus, just so everybody knows.

Cathy: Yes. Um, so anyway, he, Frank Farian had a history of manufacturing X, which we’ll get into, um, including Todd.

Cathy: One of the, the groups he put together, which made you and I laugh, was bony M

Todd: And why does that make us laugh?

Cathy: Because this, I don’t know if this will [00:04:00] make sense to people, but Todd and I, when we have dates, we try and have a date once a week, and our dates tend to consist of doing trivia. We’ll watch like YouTube trivia or we’ll like, you know, uh, play a game, whatever.

Cathy: We, whenever we do music trivia and it’ll be like, oh, these were the top 10 songs of this time, or These are the 40 best dance songs of all time. And there’s always a song by Boney m. Mm-hmm. And neither Todd or I remember Boney m

no.

Cathy: So it comes up all the time. So I think they had a song called like, maybe you could Play Like a tiny clip.

Cathy: Like there’s a song called like Rasputin or something that, ’cause I remember telling my nephew about this way before we were gonna do this show.

Yeah.

Cathy: I’ll

Todd: fast forward to the words.

Cathy: Yeah, let’s see if we can hear it. So anyway,

Cathy: it’s disco vibe. Yeah,

Todd: very [00:05:00] disco.

Cathy: But we don’t know boney M So we thought it was funny that he also put together.

Todd: Yeah. And they were. And they were in all these top, you know. Top, uh, best of best of 1978 or something like that. And we’re like, who’s Boney M

Cathy: Bone? M So we thought it was funny. So basically, uh, uh, Rob and Fab broke out in 1989, at least in the us.

Cathy: They had started in Europe in 88. And, uh, the girl, you know, it’s true, just kind of that song broke through mm-hmm. And became this huge hit. Um, they obviously had other songs like, blame It on the Rain Baby. Don’t forget my number girl, I’m gonna miss you. Other songs, they had heavy rotation on MTV. Just to bring back, you know, if you haven’t listened, we have a whole.

Cathy: Zen pop parenting episode about MTV and its impact. And it definitely had an impact on, um, milli Vanilli. Um, so why did they become so hugely popular? They were stylish, they were marketable, and they’re good looking guys. Good looking guys. They had a great [00:06:00] image.

Todd: They got really good hair, great hair. Even in the po even in the, um, documentary.

Todd: They were just, they just had short hair and they’re like, we gotta do something to make us look better.

Cathy: The guys actually were like, they were looking around and they’re like, the people who are famous, who are really singing and dancing have great hair.

Todd: Yeah. And they even said like, when you think of Elvis, you think of his hair.

Todd: Or they even had a picture of Michael Jackson and they’re like, if you have a silhouette of Michael Jackson and you just see his hair, you know, it’s his hair. You know, it’s Michael Jackson. So, and I think that, and you know, they’re like totally like ripped and shredded and beautiful. Good bodies. They’re beautiful men.

Todd: So they had that going for them

Cathy: and they had the dance moves. They were actually dancers by nature. That’s like what, how they met was as dancers. Todd’s like I, were you looking at me like they weren’t good dancers.

Todd: Well, are you, this is the first time I’m ever entering this category here. Uh oh. We got a new category.

Boy, it’s hot. This is hot. Never got this in Brooklyn. It’s like Africa hot. Za couldn’t [00:07:00] take this kind of hot

Todd: and you didn’t, this is a hot take. This is a hot take. Um, they’re fine answers. Okay. But I don’t think. They’re necessarily really, really good dancers. They, I feel like they just had a few good moves that they

Cathy: had the side to side.

Cathy: They

Todd: had the side kind of like, for some reason the side to side is just like a axle rose when he did that totally kinda wavy thing. Very, so they had a few tricks in their bag, but I don’t know if they were trained really good dancers.

Cathy: It’s what they were doing for a living though.

Todd: I know. Prior to this.

Todd: I know, but

Cathy: you’re, I, I agree. I, you know, I, when I think about them, I think about their, their moves and they’re not like Michael Jackson moves. Right, exactly. They’re like Exactly. Very basic. Let’s do this in unison. Yes, exactly right. I agree with that. So your cake is hot and not so hot at the same time.

Cathy: Okay. But the, the songs, you know, if you’re remembering, and obviously you just heard the beginning of girl, you know, it’s true, but their songs were like pop, r and b and dance altogether, right? Yeah. So it [00:08:00] was like a nice blend, perfect for eighties. Um, and obviously as we already said, they were on MTV all the time, so they were, it was like for that moment.

Cathy: It was exactly what people wanted.

Todd: We were ready. We ready for Milli Vanilli. And the name Milli Vanilli. I came from the, the producer’s girlfriend’s nickname was was Millie.

Cathy: Correct. Millie. Mm-hmm. And

Todd: they’re like, eh, Millie, how about Vanilli? Uh, Vanilli. Let’s do that.

Cathy: They went so deep on that.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: I always, we should have done a, uh, we should have talked about, this is like bands who have named themselves something, not realizing that they’re gonna become so famous.

Cathy: Yeah. And they’re gonna have to stick with that name. Yeah. Um, I think about that. I, I don’t have my list here, but one of my favorite bands, um, and I don’t know that they necessarily regret it, but like told the Wet Sprocket is a really long name.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Do you know what I mean? Like, did they know that they were gonna get really famous with that?

Cathy: Right. Um, what are some other,

Todd: well, I will go ahead and say, uh, smashing Pumpkins. I know Billy Corrigan that he didn’t really know he was starting a big world famous [00:09:00] band and he’s always not liked it and liked it at the same time. The reason he didn’t like, it’s like, it doesn’t mean anything smashing Pumpkins.

Todd: Right. Why did he choose it? Uh, I don’t remember. But the reason he liked it’s ’cause it is memorable. It is. Um, and then at Foo Fighter, same thing. Dave Groves, like, I had no idea he was starting to band. I’m like, how about Poo Fighters? So I just, uh, asked, uh, the internet. For some worst band names of all time.

Todd: Okay. The Butthole Surfers.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: Kinda like that name actually. You have

Cathy: fun. We remember it.

Todd: Um, a lot of the Natalie Portman’s shaved head, never panic at the disco. What do you think of that one? Yeah.

Cathy: Well that is Brendan. What’s his name? Who? Um, he kind of has a, his, uh, what’s his last name? You know, he sang on me with Taylor Swift.

Cathy: Yeah. Anyway, that’s his band and I don’t even know if it’s a band. I think it’s just him. It’s kind same thing, like, I remember Owl City, they sang fireflies. You remember that song? And I think it was just one guy, he’s gonna love you

like [00:10:00] me.

Cathy: What’s make about me?

Todd: I

Cathy: know your name. Yeah. That,

Todd: that’s Brandon?

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: His name. Oh, Brendan.

Cathy: Brendan. Okay. What’s the last name? Brendan.

Todd: Yuri.

Cathy: Yuri. Thank you. Brendan. Yuri. Um, so keep going. What are some

Todd: um, yeah, a few others. Uh, the, the, the, the, okay. Stop it. Meat puppets. Okay.

Cathy: Well

Todd: that’s, yeah. Um, that’s all I got.

Cathy: Do you think that’s a, is, is meat puppets supposed to represent, um, your, uh, private

parts?

Todd: I don’t know, babe. Okay. Um, speaking of like yeah, like rated art stuff, uh, limp Bizkit, isn’t there some rated art things going on with Limp Bizkit?

Cathy: Probably. It sounds, I mean, do do your

Todd: research. There’s something bad about Limp Bizkit. I don’t know what it is. No, not you, the listener. Sweet.

Cathy: Okay. I was gonna say I can’t be, ’cause

Todd: even if I think what I think it is, I’m not gonna say it ’cause it’s kind of nasty.

Cathy: Okay. I don’t wanna know. All

Todd: right.

Cathy: Um, at least on right now. So anyway, so do you want to talk about the scandal?

Todd: Um, yeah. Okay. Uh, [00:11:00] do I want to, no, I don’t. Why don’t you start? Okay. I’m gonna fill in.

Cathy: So, so what happened? Why do we talk about Milli Vanilli? Why are they so infamous? Um, so in 1990, it turned out that Rob and Fab did not sing any of their songs.

Cathy: As we said before, they had been a created group, um, or duo, and they were just like the face. Yeah. They were not singing their, uh, vocal posts. They’re

Todd: part of the package, but they were not singing anything

Cathy: and they wanted to, on the documentary, it’s like there’s a debate, like the people who are producing are like, they didn’t care at all.

Cathy: But Fab, who is still with us, is like, oh, I cared. We, we wanted to

Todd: sing. They signed a contract, had no idea what contract they were signing, realized that they were being asked not to sing. Instead just be, you know. Dance and lip sync, and they were supposedly upset and at the same time they’re like, but we’re really world famous, so let’s keep, let’s just keep going.

Todd: Let’s

Cathy: keep it. Yeah. There was, you know, I don’t know if how [00:12:00] many nights they were kept up at least originally. Um, so anyway, so why did, what was the scandal? Why did they get exposed? They were doing a live performance, um, on MTV, I think. And the track skipped and it was funny when Todd and I were walking down here, um, to start this, Todd was singing and he was singing the skipped track.

Todd: Are we gonna play it right now? Sure, go ahead. Um, the audio quality’s not the best, um, but you’ll be able to hear it, so

thank you.

Cathy: So,

Todd: so they,

Cathy: they were trying to play it off

Todd: and I’m watching the video. Yeah. And they’re kind of like, you know, deer headlights, they don’t know what to do. And one of the two, I [00:13:00] forget which one I think Rob just runs, leaves the stage. He just runs away And a panic

Yeah.

Todd: As well. He should. And then downtown Julie Brown had to go get him.

Todd: Wow. And say, get your ass back on stage. Ooh. And he did. And what’s interesting about this whole thing is that the audience didn’t even make a big deal of it. Well, because people were lip syncing all the time. And I’m, I’m having a hard time remembering that people were lip syncing all May. Okay. So there’s a few things here.

Todd: One is maybe, okay, I’m in the audience. I think it happened in Connecticut. And let’s say I live Milli Vanilli. And then I hear the record, skip right. It could, I could either say, wow, these guys are a bunch of, um, liars and they’ve been lying to me, or they’re giving their record. They’re thinking this. Live thing, but Correct that still there’s their voice on the records themselves.

Todd: Correct. And maybe that’s what people were thinking, because I thought that the moment that this happened, [00:14:00] their reputation, everything fell to pieces. No, but that’s not what happened. No, it’s not. They actually got nominated for a Grammy after this. They performed it at the Grammys by lip syncing after this.

Todd: And it wasn’t until there was some blackmailing going on between Milli Vanilli and the producer and the producer came out and said, actually, I created them. I just created them.

Cathy: And the vocalists were coming forward as well? Yes. The guys who actually sang on it. Yes. And it’s just so funny because when you see the guys who actually sang on it, and we’ll talk about them a little later, they look like they sing this.

Cathy: Yeah. If, if you, when you, when you look at the guys who actually sang it, you like the voices match. Yeah. And when you look at Milli Vanilli and you hear, you’re like, they don’t really match.

Todd: Yeah. It’s not, uh, yeah, it’s not connecting.

Cathy: It doesn’t connect. So as Todd said, they won the 1990 Grammy for. Best new artist and I, you know, which was exciting, but they were also like, we’re in for it.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. Because once you have that kind of notoriety, notoriety and you are winning awards, there’s gonna be a lot more scrutiny, [00:15:00] investigation, and they knew it was gonna, you know, be a big fallout. So do you

Todd: wanna know who they, uh, went up against for best New artist?

Cathy: Let me guess. Let’s see, 1989. Let me think if I like, was Guns N Roses on there?

Todd: Nope. You’re not gonna be able to

Cathy: get this. You don’t

Todd: think

Cathy: so? You’ve heard of all of ’em, but what are the odds? You remembering this one? I know what year it was. So it was my senior year in high school. Oh, nuts, babe. Um, but I, what’s funny, is that, that time? No, no. Was it 1989 or 1990? So it would be your freshman year in college.

Cathy: Bobby Brown?

Todd: No.

Cathy: Okay, go ahead.

Todd: Uh, tone Looch. Okay. Soul to Soul. Okay. Nina Cherry Sure. And the Indigo Girls.

Cathy: Oh,

Todd: interesting.

Cathy: Interesting. They kind of are, uh, very different for that. That’s great

Todd: category. That’s very, very much so. I’m them, I’m guessing they’re all pissed that they didn’t get a chance to win because Milli Vanilli won.

Yeah. And

Todd: the guy, the whoever the guy was in charge, the PR innocently submitted them thinking this is a good [00:16:00] idea. And the minute that that happened, the record company’s like, what did you do? And they’re like, he’s like, well, I, that’s what we do. This is what we do. And so obviously the record co, and I hope we talk about this, how the scapegoats were these two men.

Todd: Totally. But they were part of a system and they were pawns. And of course they need to take some responsibility, but all the people that were making all the money got off scot free.

Cathy: It was totally systemic. Yes. I mean, they were part of something that they, you know, to your point, they read the contract and then realized they weren’t gonna sing.

Cathy: Yeah. Like it was a big thing. So, um, so. Again, just a few like cultural impact things. Obviously this, you know, this whole scandal, uh, created conversations around authenticity in pop music. It, it’s interesting because, you know, not right away, but that was beginning the transition into grunge, which was all about authenticity.

Cathy: So it was kind of like we had the worst case scenario of inauthenticity. Yeah. Which is, [00:17:00] they’re not even singing. They’re completely created, put together. Totally not genuine. And then it, you know, goes right into grunge music later. Um, so obviously it’s a cautionary tale about the music industry and how you can get wrapped up in things.

Cathy: I mean, the thing is, is this is a very specific story and like you said, these guys get thrown under the bus, but we’ve seen how many, uh, musicians get like eaten up. Yeah. By the industry. By the system, by the system. You know, I think of Britney Spears, I think of Justin, uh, Bieber, I think of, um,

Todd: they’re vehicles for rich.

Todd: White guys to make a lot of money.

Cathy: That’s right. And, and, you know, have their money. Like they hold people hostage to their agreement. Damn right. They

Todd: don’t know what they’re doing when they’re signing. Mm-hmm. They’re poor. These two young men were like living on somebody’s couch and somebody’s like, here, I’m gonna give you some money.

Todd: Will you sign this contract if you’re 19, 20, 21 years old? I would say 90% [00:18:00] of kids would sign it. Course not like, let me check with my lawyer. These guys have been trying to make it forever. And the minute somebody throws ’em some money, they’re like, yeah, I’m in. Let’s go. It happens all

Cathy: the time. I mean, the stories are endless and if you’re in the industry, you probably know a million more stories than we do.

Cathy: You know, one I think of right now is, do you know the singer jojo by any chance? Not jojo. Siwa. Not Swa, the jojo, just that’s her name. She, um, was kind of big. I remember maybe in the early two thousands. And she was really young. Um, and I really loved her. Like I loved her music. Like there was a one song by her that I just played all the time.

Cathy: Um, and. She, like, something happened con contractually where they basically said, you can’t make any more music with us.

Yeah. You

Cathy: can’t make any more music anywhere else. And we’ve basically just Got you.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: And then Prince had a big falling out. Remember? That’s why he changed his name to his simple. I don’t, and

Todd: understand all that, but yeah.

Cathy: Yeah. It’s just, [00:19:00] you know, there’s no way Todd and I could come up with every single time this has happened because it’s happened so many times. But it is, you know, it’s not new. And I like that you are saying that it’s not all their fault. Yeah. Um, so a few other things that we’re going on, um, in our country, just so we kind of have an idea of what was going on, um, and how, why this kind of became so combustible and blew up, um, AIDS crisis was growing the, you know, the understanding of what AIDS was and how many people were getting it.

Cathy: Uh, it was getting a little more public attention. Um. George HW Bush was elected, not w but hw. Can I go back really quick?

Todd: Sure. Worst examples of performers getting robbed by studios? Let’s hear it. TLC. Despite selling over 10 million copies of Crazy, sexy, cool, they made less than $50,000 each from the album.

Todd: That’s insane. Kesha locked it along. Public legal bat Dr. Luke with Dr. Luke Prince fought Warner Brothers over the ownership. Uh, then here’s jojo. It says, Jojo good. Signed [00:20:00] to Blackground records as a teen. She was unable to release music for nearly a decade. A decade due to label. Disputes

Cathy: and her voice is amazing.

Cathy: Yeah. Like she was so well thought of. And actually there was a big thing even with NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. Yeah. Where they were under some contractual agreement with that guy who ended up going to prison. Um, or he is, I think he died. What about,

Todd: yeah, you said the Backstreet Boys. Lou Pearlman. Lou Pearlman.

Todd: Yeah. Um, and then last one, the Monkeys, the good old monkeys. Oh, interesting. Marketed as made for TV band. They had little creative control studio executives even prevented them from playing instruments on early recordings,

Cathy: which is so interesting. ’cause we know because of our friend, uh, Jerry O’Keefe, that we know more about the Monkeys than we used to because it’s his favorite band.

Cathy: Yes. It’s like he’s a good friend of ours. And I remember. Um, I used to watch the show. I knew all their music. I had their greatest hits when I was young, et cetera. But when we met Jerry, he kind of taught us like, this is, they’re really good musicians. You wanna know how

Todd: not to make friends with your neighbor who you just moved into [00:21:00] the on the street with.

Todd: Are you talking about J? Yeah. Okay. Because he told me that I love Jerry. We have since mended this fence or this repair. He’s

Cathy: forgiven you for this. But

Todd: I, he said, so I said, who do you, who’s your favorite band? He’s like, the Monkeys. And I thought he was joking. Yeah, because he plays guitar. Yeah. Jerry’s a musician.

Todd: Yeah. Say The Beatles or whatever. And I’m like, but aren’t, don’t you like any real bands or something like that? So that’s not good. But I do contend that the monkeys have the best karaoke song of all time. Your Kara done. That’s mine, babe. I know. I, I could be in the worst mood of all time, and if I hear this song, I’m gonna get in a good mood.

Todd: Next time you see me in a bad mood, sweetie, just play this song. I will.

Cathy: And we’ll talk about David Jones.

Todd: We didn’t talk about David Jones. I thought the Brady Books episode

Cathy: No. And I had it written down three times because that’s one of my favorite episodes ever.

Todd: Hold on one second. Don’t

Cathy: play it too long.

Cathy: Sweetie, we’re muting [00:22:00] it in between. Not really though. ’cause I can still hear it. No, you can’t hear nothing. I can hear it. I’m so, yeah, we didn’t talk about Brady Bunch. So when we did the Brady Bunch episode a few weeks ago or whenever it was, I, my favorite episode was the Davy Jones episode. And I’m sorry I missed that.

Cathy: ’cause for those of us who remember it, we remember how great he was.

Yeah.

Cathy: So a few other things. As we move into 1989, um, the Berlin Wall Falls, um, Tiananmen Square protests in China. Um, the Eastern block collapses. Like things were happening. Yeah. They were shifting and changing. Um, in as far as like pop culture, MTV is still dominant, obviously.

Cathy: Um, the Simpsons debuted in 1989. Can you believe that? How long that’s been around? Yeah. Um, hair metal and dance pop, were all over the place. Madonna, Janet Jackson, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, rapid Hip Hop were mainstream Public Enemy, NWA run, DMC. Guess what movie won Best Picture in 1988 or won Be Picture?

Cathy: I think it was in 1989, but it was released in 1988. [00:23:00]

Todd: Mm, no idea.

Cathy: Uh, rain Man. Oh yeah, one. Um, this was the first year that CDs overtook vinyl, um, and home computers. And video games like Nintendo and Sega were huge. What did you have?

Todd: Uh, I had an in television.

Cathy: I had Odyssey, which was like so bad. Such a generic, there were cool things about

Todd: Odyssey.

Cathy: No, there weren’t.

Todd: There was a cool, a few cool things.

Cathy: No, I don’t

Todd: remember what they were. We

Cathy: were just talking about this. I told you about Pickax Pete. Yeah, that was the game. There was another, it like was a takeoff of another game. But anyway, um, the just say no anti-drug campaign was huge. That was Nancy Reagan’s.

Cathy: And then again, as I already said, HIV and AIDS awareness was more public media coverage, exact, you know, all that kind of activism began. So why does, why do all those things? I just say, you know, matter to Milli Vanilli, because there was a lot going on and people were looking for escapism. They were looking for more dance, pop, more fun, feel good music.

Cathy: Um, you know, they, we were in a time where music was about the image. It was, you know, [00:24:00] high MTV value, um, how you look, what you’re wearing, all that kind of thing. And then as we, as I said already, the focus on authenticity came back full force. The pendulum swang. Swang a word. Swung,

Todd: swung, swang, swung it,

Cathy: swang swung all the way to the other side.

Cathy: So people wanted real music again.

Todd: Can we skip over remember when or you got some stuff?

Cathy: My only remember when is freshman year in college, I, I texted all of my girlfriends, um, from, you know, college and I said, guys, give me my gimme some Milli Vanilli memories. We loved them, right? And they were all like, did we love them?

Cathy: And they just remember that. I mean, every fraternity party we went to, that was the music that was playing. It was definitely one of the songs. Not mine. I know. Well, you weren’t there yet. You were still in high school. Oh, I’m sorry. You were just, you were young and Yes, it was. Um, but it was just everywhere.

Cathy: Like what I remember freshman year of college is Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, uh, new Kids on the Block and Milli Vanilli. That’s what I remember.

Todd: Well, and for [00:25:00] my, remember when, I’m gonna bring it a little bit back to,

I remember when

Todd: do, do, do, do, um. I don’t really have many remember ones. But I will say, uh, ’cause the second half of this podcast is not just about Milli Vanilli, it’s about the imposter syndrome.

Todd: Imposter

Cathy: syndrome, yeah.

Todd: And my only thing is like, I am a mildly successful person. Don’t

Cathy: mildly you are a successful kick then. Okay.

Todd: So whatever. I, I’m good at certain things that I think really good, successful, and I’ll give an example, podcasting. Yeah. You and I have been doing it for 15 years. This isn’t as true for me.

Todd: Um, like I don’t get very nervous when we’re about to podcast. Me

neither.

Todd: But when I’m leading a men living space mm-hmm. And I’m in charge of holding space and leading a good high quality meeting for a bunch of guys, I still get really nervous. And I also say to myself, who am I to do this? Mm-hmm.

Todd: Interesting. So, I, I, my my judgment is most of us suffer from some form of imposter syndrome. For sure. Um, and I think the [00:26:00] definition of imposter syndrome is like when you have, when the evidence is you are actually good at this and yet you don’t feel like you are good at it. Mm-hmm. So I just wanna like share, there are certain things that I have been doing very well, like leading a men’s group and I still get super nervous.

Todd: I remember Johnny Carson used to say he gets nervous before every single show. Of course, now there’s a difference between getting nervous and feeling like you’re an imposter. Mm-hmm. And maybe I need to like parse that out a bit. But there’s always parts of me like. Who am I to, to lead this group of guys on a weekend or whatever.

Cathy: Well, and I think that’s, they are different, being nervous and feeling like an imposter. But I think it’s a very typical human quality regardless of what level of fame you’ve reached and when, or fame or success. You know, we’re talking about the music industry, so I use the word fame, but I think that one, I remember, um, I loved this interview that I heard with Neil Patrick Harris, like about five years ago, where he talked about this climbing thing.

Cathy: He was talking about imposter syndrome and how you, you know, first of [00:27:00] all, you have no jobs and then you do have a job and you feel so proud, but then you realize. Other people have better jobs. They’re on bigger TV shows. They have like more no notoriety. But then you get on a really good show, you get nominated for an Emmy and you’re like, oh my gosh, I got nominated for an Em Emmy.

Cathy: But then you realize that Emmy’s aren’t as well liked as Oscars, and you want an Oscar. And then he said, then he got the opportunity, he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, but he was able to host the Oscars. Mm-hmm.

And

Cathy: he was like, oh my God, I’m hosting the Oscars. I’ve, I’ve reached it. And then he realized that after that show, there was a Madonna after party, he wasn’t invited to.

Cathy: So there’s always this level that you don’t think you’re good enough. Yeah. You don’t think that you belong. And, um, we have to remember that I, I think one of the things that’s helped me in my career with podcasting, writing, and teaching, which can all be very vulnerable. Right. You’re like, you know, sharing yourself.

Cathy: I really go into it with a lot of humility where if someone’s like, oh, that’s not true, or that’s not right. I’m like, okay, I totally wanna learn now. Yeah. Like I’m open to [00:28:00] that. So I’m not afraid of, I don’t need, at this point in my career, I think I needed this in my thirties, but not now at 53. I don’t need to be the one who knows everything.

Cathy: I don’t, I really don’t. I’m like, I know a lot and I have a lot of experience, but if someone comes along, um, and has new information, different information, interesting. I’m all in,

Todd: in the words of Mr. Miyagi, sweetie, yes. There’s always someone better. There is, and Neil Patrick Harris. Um, you know, the goalposts always move.

Todd: They move. And when you and I started this podcast 15 years ago, I’d been like, if we can just get a hundred people to listen, that’d be awesome. And then a hundred turned into a thousand, turned into 10,000. And it’s the idea that I will never be satisfied

Cathy: that Well, and that I know about you. Yes. Because we have reached some incredible milestones and Todd’s like, well, mm-hmm.

Cathy: Like, I think we’re in the top, like 3% of podcasters. Mm-hmm. Todd’s like, yeah, but there’s people in the 1%. And I’m like, but see, all those people are famous and they have like, uh, like all this like backing, like they’re part of an organization or they’re [00:29:00] part of a, um, you know, they’re being funded by Slate.

Cathy: Yeah. Or the Washington Post or, you know, the New York Times, or, or they just have a big, you know, they’re, they’re part of a system

Todd: Truth,

Cathy: and we are not. No. So ours is a totally different kind of experience.

Todd: Yeah. We’re doing it on our own. We’re doing it on our Are you ready for the next category? Um,

yes.

Do you know the human head weighs eight pounds? Do you know the human head weights eight pounds?

Todd: What do you have for random facts, buddy? This is my favorite

Cathy: one. That sound effect is effect is my favorite. Okay, so a few, uh, random facts. Number one is that, um. Milli Vanilli sold 7 million copies mm-hmm. Of their, your, their debut album.

Cathy: I mean, think about that. That’s so many. So Girl, you know, it’s true. Was like a massive hit six times platinum, um, top the charts. So I just thought that was like huge. Um, they were the first artists to have a return refund. So if, you know, once they [00:30:00] were found out and the news hit the fan, or however you wanna say it, they, their record label offered a refund and it was the first time that had ever happened.

Todd: It said, well, I think there’s a class action lawsuit against Milli Vanilli. So maybe that was the record company’s way of trying to minimize that possibility.

Cathy: Yeah. It says Arista records offered refunds to people who bought Girl, you know, it’s true. And this is really interesting because it’s kind of a foreshadowing to how music fans would start to demand accountability.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? It was kind of the beginning of, wait a second. You’re there making music, music for us for the good or the bad. Like it also became cancel culture eventually, but, you know, once the internet came around. But, um, another interesting thing is the pop culture connection to this is a random fact that Milli Vanilli’s music was included in the Pam and Tommy show.

Cathy: Oh, it wasn’t a documentary.

Todd: Yeah, it was an acted show.

Cathy: It was included in the People versus OJ Simpson and in the Menendez murders. Oh. Which I am gonna go into that [00:31:00] more later because, you know, I know a lot about the Menendez brothers. Probably more than one should, but should one should know a lot about the Menendez brothers.

Cathy: But do I? Yes. Mm-hmm. Um, so, oh.

Todd: Sorry babe. Sorry. In

Cathy: my ears. Were you playing blame it on the rain?

Todd: Uh, I was, uh, previewing something I’m gonna be playing later.

Cathy: Um, and so basically what was, you know, why they’re using those songs in there is number one, ’cause they were like hits when these things were happening.

Cathy: Like Pam and Tommy and OJ and Menendez brothers. Those songs were on the radio. But there’s also like this overlapping falseness thing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like there’s like, it’s a little meta, there’s like more to it than, than just the songs. But I’ll talk more about that later. I

Todd: wanna play a quick clip from this documentary.

Todd: Sure.

Um, logo. There they are on the back. Shirtless, of course. ’cause why not? And let’s see who’s credited on this album.

[00:32:00] So it says, musicians here. And I don’t see Rob and Fab on here at all. So, backing vocals, Jody and Linda Rocco.

Todd: So, so they’re not on the backing vocals. So they, the documentarian asks the executives like, did you know that? And he, the documentarian like catches them red handed. So what are you trying to tell us?

Todd: Like they weren’t, um, Rob and Fab were not listed as vocalist on the album itself. Wow. Rta which is the American company, bought it and the documentarian asked them, I think I’m gonna play it here in a second.

Cathy: So they’re like, they’re hiding in plain psyche. Exactly.

Todd: You

know,

Todd: like, that is a giant red

flag for me on that album.

All or nothing. That was the name of it, right? Uh, that was the name of the European album. Rob and Fab are actually not credited as smokeless. Really? Okay. I didn’t know that. So that’s, that’s kind of alarming, right. [00:33:00]

Cathy: You know what? It’s so interesting because I, they’re playing dumb. I know. I know. They are.

Cathy: And sometimes I put myself in their shoes where those industry people are in the moment. I’m not letting them off the hook at in any way. But they are like constantly building things, like creating a machine and they’re just trying to like pump out Yes. Entertainment. And I can see them being like, I don’t care if they don’t sing.

Todd: Well, that’s the thing. They don’t care.

Cathy: They don’t care. Yeah. Let’s just

Todd: keep making money. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. And these

Cathy: guys look good. Yes. And it’s all a show anyway, so let’s give ’em a show like it’s not Okay. Yeah. ’cause but there’s also, you can almost step in their shoes and be like, that is really the

Todd: goal is to sell albums.

Todd: Yes. That’s it. Um, I don’t know why I wanted to play that, but I wanted to play them. Well,

Cathy: I I think it’s, it’s really interesting. Uh, any other random fact? Yeah. I

Todd: got a few, uh, Grammy award for best new artists is the only Grammy ever officially revoked. Wow. Uh, in the nineties, Robin Fabs released an album after the scandal Sure did.

Todd: Called [00:34:00] Rob and Fab. They’re hoping to sell, I don’t know, a couple million copies. Guess how many had sold?

Cathy: I don’t even have a guess.

Todd: 2000.

Cathy: Well, I They actually tried to rebrand twice. Yeah. They did The Real Milli Vanilli where they released the songs with them singing. And then later, actually, I think

Todd: real Milli Vanilli were the actual singers.

Todd: So Frank came back Oh. With the actual singers. Thank

Cathy: you for that understanding. So, okay, I’m reading this wrong. After the scandal, the real Milli Vanilli was released with the actual vocalists. Yes. Thank you. And then later Fab and Rob released an album called Rob and Fab. Yes. Okay.

Todd: Uh, and the only other thing I have here is speaking of imposter syndrome.

Todd: Mm-hmm. Uh, it was coined in 1978 by Pauline Clancy and Suzanne IMEs, and the paper was titled The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women. Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. So it was all about the successful women who struggled to internalize their accomplishments and later research found that affects all [00:35:00] people and all genders and all backgrounds.

Cathy: It sure does, but it does make sense to me. This is a little more rolling in the deep, but we don’t have to, you know, I’ll just put in here that it makes sense why women feel that way, because when you’ve been socialized or your culture tells you you should be one thing, and then you are doing your best to go into a world that was not built for you, if it’d be a, you know, a business or you know, being in a boardroom or whatever, it no wonder you look around and you’re like this, you know, it’s not, it’s not built for me.

Cathy: It doesn’t mean I don’t belong here. It just means you can look around and be like, everybody here is wearing a suit. Everybody here is talking a certain way. Everybody here is giving football analogies. You know what I mean? I do. Where you’re like, do I belong here? And yes you do, but are you ready for the next

category?

Cathy: Uh, WTF

Oh, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got outta hand fast. It jumped up a notch.

Todd: It did, didn’t it? All right. I’m gonna give you my WTF. Let’s hear it. Um, the first one, actually, the only one. [00:36:00] How is it, and I think I know the answer. Okay. When you heard these two men speak, Uhhuh, I know. Very, very thick accent.

Todd: I know one guy’s from France and the other guy’s from Germany, and I understand that. When people sing, they can sing without accents. Yeah. But, but then they’re doing the interviews like from a public perspective, why did it take us so long? Or were, did we just not wanna collectively believe it? Or did we not even care that much?

Cathy: I think it’s a mixture of all the above. I think we weren’t looking for it. Yeah. So no one’s thinking, you know, no one’s doing a big investigation there. Number two, I think we just like to listen to it and we just enjoyed it. And number three, I, you know, I always think about British, uh, singers.

Yeah.

Cathy: And they talk in a certain way, but they sing in another way.

Cathy: Yeah. And you know, and this is true not just for people who are British, but um, are you being British? Are you being British? Not anymore. Um, so, you know. [00:37:00] That I think we’re just conditioned to just be like, yeah, it’s these guys. And speaking of, we should probably say their names. The guys who actually sang these songs were named Brad Howell.

Cathy: He was the lead, uh, vocalist on many of the hits. John Davis, who was another singer who? Charles Shaw. He’s the one who did The Girl, you know, it’s True Girl, you know, with girl, you know, it’s Todd’s gonna just do it when it skips. Yes. And then a woman named Linda Rocco was the, um, background for Blame It On the Rain.

Cathy: So they were the ones who really sang this song. Probably didn’t get paid any money very well. Well, they didn’t, obviously they tried to do the Real Milli Vanilli album. It didn’t work out. But on that note, a few things that are WTF to me just in this category of like, you know, being inauthentic is, I remember this came up also with, uh, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, uh, the Good Vibration songs, uh, song, you know, the woman, um.

Cathy: Uh, what, what did she, I think her name [00:38:00] was Loleta Holloway. Um, she was the same, you know, she’s the one who actually sings goodbye. Yeah, that’s her voice. But she wasn’t credited at first and she wasn’t paid at first.

Todd: Aside from that, she got everything she wanted. I mean,

Cathy: come on. And if you’ve seen the View video, I don’t, I can’t remember if the video, if they have anyone sing that part, I don’t remember.

Cathy: But it’s really all focused on Marky Mark and a little bit of the Funky Bunch. Who is the funky bunch, by the way? I have no idea. I don’t either. Um, so she, and then same thing happened with CNC Music Factory. Do you remember gonna make you sweat? You know, oh, I love that

Todd: song.

Cathy: But Dance Now that song, so they used a woman named Martha Wash.

Cathy: She was from the Weather Girls and her vocals were used without credit. And then they had a really thin model, uh, lip sync, her parts in the video.

Todd: I’m looking at the model right now. Yeah.

Cathy: So this is actually a woman named Martha Wash and then, uh, black Box, they have a song [00:39:00] also called Ride on Time. It was again, Loleta Holloway sang Apart and she didn’t get credit.

Cathy: And then in Pump Up the Jam, they also, there was another singer who didn’t get credit. Um, it, you know, featured someone else in the video. So we were doing a lot of like, uh,

Cathy: we were doing a lot of like having someone sing, not giving them their proper credit or Yeah, let’s, let’s screw

Todd: over the singer and then, and let, let’s screw over the performer and let’s just make as much money as we can.

Cathy: Correct. So it’s not that crazy, like people were doing that. Yeah. And it’s, and it’s not.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: Well, and I just wanna like, just share after watching, and we haven’t talked about what happened to Rob. Should we bring that up now? Sure. Rob ended up, um, struggling with, uh, drug addiction. There’s a really poignant, uh, part in the documentary where fabs, you know, they had since broken apart.

Cathy: Yeah.

Cathy: They were no longer together

Todd: and Fabs was [00:40:00] at the, uh, what’s, where did, uh, where did, uh, Johnny Depp’s Viper Room. Viper Room. So Fabs was at the Viper room and saw Rob, like on the park bench across the street. Wow. And really, and his first time, he’d seen him in years and he’s like, let’s get you into this.

Todd: And he was at this like crack house or something bad like that. And, uh, he ended up dying by overdose, I think it was alcohol and pills mixed together.

Cathy: Like they didn’t call it a suicide. No. It was accidental.

Todd: Right. Um, so. Anyways, I, there was a point I wanted to make, but I forgot what that was.

Well,

Todd: about Rob and just the Rob dot Oh.

Todd: Through watching the documentary, um, for me, the villain was this Frank Guy.

Yeah.

Todd: Now Rob and Fab let the success kind of get to them and they thought they were too cool for school and all that, but at the end of the day, they were pawns on a chessboard. Sure. And my, uh, I just really felt, um, warm [00:41:00] towards, uh, fab, who actually made it through.

Todd: He ended up, I don’t think he got married, but he had a baby with this woman and he learned how to sing. I’m gonna play a little bit of that later on. Okay. Um, so the villain for me is this Frank dude who obviously did not want to, and he died last year, Frank Oh. Variant. And he did not want to be interviewed for the documentary.

Todd: Whenever anybody does wanna be interviewed for the documentary. You kind of know that there’s probably not,

Cathy: well, unless the documentary is, is slamming you or like taking you down. And I, and I’m seeing this from both sides. Like somebody who, who is corrupt, who did some, did something wrong, but there’s a lot of documentaries that are unauthorized that are created That’s true.

Cathy: Where the person is like, I’m not gonna be in that. ’cause you’re, you know, reporting false information.

Todd: Right.

Cathy: Um, so do you wanna talk, do you wanna go Zen parenting music? Yeah, let’s do that.

Todd: Um, as soon as I get over here

Todd: and then we’re just gonna roll into the deep

Yep. Let’s do it.[00:42:00]

Todd: Okay. What do you got? Fabe.

Cathy: Okay, so this is where I wanna start with the Menendez brothers thing. Okay. In the rolling, in the Deep, so there’s like kind of a symbolic, uh, role of, you know, milli Vanilli in the Menendez Brothers documentary that came out. Uh, it wasn’t even a documentary, it was a fictionalized ver version by Ryan Murphy.

Yeah.

Cathy: Um, but they used the music, um, because it was Lyle’s favorite band. Mm-hmm. Which is, you know, iconic in itself. Weird. Um, and if you don’t know, the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric were convicted of killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, um, in 1989. Um. And they are now actually getting a new trial.

Cathy: But it’s been, you know, a long, couldn’t

Todd: locked in on that case. Yeah.

Cathy: Don’t even get me started. I’ve been watching everything about that. You

Todd: could do a whole, the beginning, you could do a whole series on that case.

Cathy: I sure could. Since the very beginning. So first of all, just a few things. It was actually Eric Menendez, who was a fan of Milli Vanilli.

Cathy: But in the movie, in the show, it’s like Lyle, who’s playing it a lot. So just [00:43:00] difference. Um, so according to court testimony, um, the, the guys listened to their music constantly, especially girl, you know, it’s true. And the CD was reportedly playing in their car, uh, days after the murders, when they were driving around in their new fancy cars, which was not a good choice voice.

No,

Cathy: that was not a good idea. Um, so it kind of became this like, you know, the, it kind of became the music surrounding them. So a few things that, this is the rolling in the deep part, image versus reality. Milli Vanilli’s whole appeal was built on a lie, right? The Menendez brothers whole, whole. Situation was built on a lie as well.

Cathy: Um, there is the reason I like to talk about things like, you know, pop culture, things like the Menendez Brothers is, that’s a really interesting gray case. They absolutely killed their parents, period. Right. There is they, you, you can’t do that. The reasons why though, are really interesting in terms of our own ability to understand, um, like, you know, [00:44:00] sexual assault of a child or Yeah.

Cathy: Or get

Todd: it through a different lens.

Cathy: Exactly like what happened. Um, there was some incest allegations that the boys were being molested by their father, and at the time, in 1989. People would say things like, boys can’t be molested. That doesn’t happen to boys. Right. And of course it does. And we know this now, but it was part of the reason that they were given a death sentence is because what they said is they had been harmed, physically abused, molested from the time they were very young, and it caused them to take, you know, do such a horrendous thing.

Cathy: But that was not taken into consideration. So, you know, they were hiding their trauma. Yeah. They were living in Beverly Hills having this experience, you know, it’s surface level illusions, let’s just say that. So also the collapse of the eighties excess, you know, like Milli Vanilli was totally emblematic of the eighties flash.

Cathy: Just like the Menendez brothers were like emblematic of the eighties and greed and all of those things that, [00:45:00] you know, the yuppie culture. And it was, it was. This, the music of Milli Vanilli and the Menendez Brothers case was like the end of it.

Yeah.

Cathy: And not to mention that, just a year or two after, or maybe it wasn’t even that close after, right after the Menendez case, OJ.

Cathy: Thing happened. Yeah. The Rodney King, you know, the LA riots, Rodney King, oj, like, things were collapsing, you know? Um, sounds

familiar.

Cathy: Yeah. So again, a pop duo kind of fantasy built on deception, milli Vanilli and the Menendez brothers. Right? So rich families hiding abuse and dysfunction, you know, shattering a fantasy, all those things.

Cathy: So also another part about rolling in the deep teen disconnection and escapism. Um, you know, Eric listening to Milli Vanilli was obvi post murder was obviously an escape for him, right?

Yeah.

Cathy: Which it was for, ’cause Eric is the one who ended up, um, in the, the two boys. Lyle felt like they could get away with this, and Eric was the one who ended up telling his therapist.

Cathy: And the therapist then. Shared this news again. There’s more to it than that. [00:46:00] Yeah. But, um, that’s what really got them caught where they knew for sure. ’cause they had tapes of Eric saying, yes, we did this. Um, so, you know, his coping mechanisms were this, this type of music that was also false. Yeah. Which again, it’s just meta an interesting, um, and let’s see.

Cathy: So that’s just, that’s just my little Menendez brothers.

Todd: So you just had to sneak Menendez brothers into this podcast.

Cathy: Didn’t, and then, so now I wanna talk about imposter syndrome. Todd already explained what it was or who developed it or why it came to be, but just so everybody understands what it is.

Cathy: It’s that persistent feeling of being a fraud. Um, despite evidence that you’re a success. Like you make, people may say you’re doing great, and you’re like, no, I still feel like I don’t belong here. Self-doubt, fear of exposure. Fear of exposure is a big part of, um, imposter syndrome for me. Can you imagine?

Todd: Like, I remember growing up and I, like, I remember one time I broke a window playing baseball at my house and I didn’t tell my parents about it. Yeah. And the amount of energy that I expended worrying about it. Yeah. I can’t [00:47:00] like multiply that times a hundred thousand with Milli Vanilli like, or the Menendez brothers.

Todd: You’re getting caught in this lie. I know. I can only imagine. That’s gotta turn your insides out.

Cathy: Well, and that is actually, you know, when we talk about human beings, the um. Human beings are not built to keep lies like that. Yeah. Like one thing that, I mean, they can, but they’re not wired to be, they’re not wired to, I’m not saying it’s not possible.

Cathy: Yeah. If things, if there’s a glitch or you, you know, a lot of glitches out there. Yeah. There’s a lot of glitches where obviously people can be lies, you know, liars and maintain that for a long period of time and hurt people. Of course that’s there. But typically when a crime has been committed, something that the police really depend on is they’re gonna tell somebody, why is a criminal gonna tell somebody?

Cathy: ’cause they can’t hold it inside. Mm-hmm. And that’s the thing about human beings. We can’t keep secrets.

Todd: Can I, can I play, uh, this has everything to do with what you’re talking about right now. Yeah, go ahead. There’s a scene in the movie quiz show.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:48:00]

Todd: And I forget the actors. Who’s

Ray Fine? Ro right?

Uh, Robert Redford director. Yeah. And Ray Fine’s character

Todd: is the one who is cheating on this game show and making a bunch of money.

Yes.

Todd: And the prosecutor’s about to start talking about this story and I think it just kind of is very appropriate to what we’re talking about. Okay.

No, I remember five, six years ago, my Uncle Harold told my aunt about this fairy hack.

It’s a sort of mildly upsetting event in my family. Mild, what do you have to put in context? See, I thing what it is, the affair was over something like eight years. So I remember asking him, oh, why’d you tell her? Got away with it. I’ll never forget what he said.

Getting away with their body. Couldn’t live with it. Yes.

Cathy: That’s it right there. That’s it. It happens with serial killers. Like even the people that are psychopaths, sociopaths, they eventually have to tell someone. It’s why like a zodiac murderer has to send a letter to the police. Yeah. It’s why want a chance of getting caught.

Cathy: Exactly. [00:49:00] It’s like they have to say what they did. Sometimes, you know, serial killers will leave something that defines who they are. Yeah. And they keep doing that. And there is like a, again, it’s, we’re wired to not hold those things.

Todd: Can I share a few famous examples of Sure. People getting caught either being inauthentic or lying or cheating.

Todd: Sure. And then you just give like one or two sentences on each one.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: James Fry.

Cathy: Yeah, he wrote a million little pieces. Uh, he wrote a book about his experience being a drug addict, but he exaggerated, kind of made it more like a lucid dream. And he, uh, it was picked for an Oprah book club. And she then felt like he had lied.

Todd: Yeah. She held him to the mm-hmm. She held his feet to the fire. I he sure did. Uh, Lance Armstrong.

Cathy: Well,

Todd: we know what he did. He lied and doped. He did. That was such a complicated piece because it was such a wonderful story, man with cancer. I think he had stage four cancer and came back there. He did.

Cathy: And you know, I watched his documentary and it’s, it doesn’t leave it super gray for me.

Cathy: Like I, he [00:50:00] did what he did and he did. It wasn’t just about the doping though, everybody, it was about how he like tried to blackmail other people. Yeah. Oh

Todd: yeah.

Cathy: He totally tried to, he threw other people under the bus and then he totally harmed families. He

Todd: did everything he could to try to save face. Yes.

Cathy: And without caring who he hurt in the process. So it was, it’s more than just. Because if you talk about, you know, cyclists, he will say, and everyone does, they were all, they were all dumping, they were alling. Yeah. So it’s, that’s not it. It’s

Todd: more, that doesn’t mean it’s okay. Um, you probably don’t know who this is.

Todd: Rosie Ruiz. No dunno. In 1980s, she was declared the winner of the Boston Marathon before it was discovered. She had joined the race near the end. Oh geez. Never ran the full course. Oh, Rosie. Rosie. Come on. She wasn’t winded at all. She’s like, what? It’s fine. Uh, Tanya Harding.

Yeah.

Todd: Now it was the Guy Gully.

Todd: Wow. Jeff Gully. You’re good. He was the, the, the nefarious guy, but she, Tanya just kind of went along with it. Right.

Cathy: Well, and again, if you know her story or you’ve watched Daton or you, I mean, which is a fictionalized version of it, [00:51:00] but she didn’t have a chance. Yeah. I mean, with the mother that she had and with the lack of privilege she had versus most ice skaters have so much privilege and her being manipulated by Jeff Gully and it was just a setup.

Cathy: But yeah, she, there, she was involved enough that it was a problem, but no, it wasn’t all her. Nancy,

Todd: can you imagine how scary that was? I know she’s getting ready for the Olympics or whatever and somebody takes a, some type of weapon to her.

Cathy: Yep. A bat to her knee. Do you remember who got the gold that year or that year when after?

Cathy: I don’t. So Nancy ended up getting the silver

Todd: and it was the, I found ba.

Cathy: Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. I remember it so vividly because she actually had mistakes. Ana did, but she did this.

Todd: Yeah. The level of, uh, exactly the difficulty, the difficulty level. Uh, last one. Elizabeth Holmes.

Cathy: Yeah. So she’s, uh, Theranos,

Todd: uh, and I think her husband is starting up a similar company, right?

Todd: She is. Which is, so [00:52:00]

Cathy: she, you gotta watch that documentary or the fictionalized version with Amanda Siegfried. Uh, they’re both really good, but she obviously tried to, you know, a great premise, right? A drop of blood can tell us everything that we need to know about you so we don’t have to draw so much blood.

Cathy: But it never worked and it never, ever. Even got close to working. Um, she was claiming to do what the tech bros were doing, which was just keep saying it’s gonna work, but it didn’t. And a lot of people got hurt and a lot of money was wasted, et cetera. Um, but she ended up, while this case was being like tried and it wasn’t even being tried yet, you know, there’s a time period between being indicted and tried.

Cathy: And in that time she got married and she had children.

Mm-hmm.

Cathy: So it made it even more difficult. I think in her mind she thought maybe they’ll be more lenient because I’m a mother.

Yeah.

Cathy: And she still got a pretty heavy sentence. And then to your point, Ted, her husband is trying to do something.

Todd: Well, and I remember Scott Galloway said something about Elizabeth Holmes because she got caught cheating and [00:53:00] lying.

Todd: She did. And what he was saying is, so many people. Are lying and get caught and nothing happens to them. True. And she was made as an example upon, um, so I wish I remembered more of what he said about that.

Cathy: And is that based on misogyny? Yes. Is that based on, um, the fact that, you know, somebody’s trying to sell a product and lying, she’s actually selling something where people thought they had cancer?

Cathy: Yeah, because they would get their blood work back and they would find out that they had elevated white cell blood count or whatever. I don’t understand all that, but I just know that a lot of people were emotionally harmed and told to do things or not told to do things like, that’s the other thing is if you’re using something that doesn’t work, then people aren’t getting real results, so they may have.

Cathy: Something like cancer and not know. Yeah. So there’s probably, that’s the thing is this is why I love, um, the gray or not being binary, is because there could be misogyny in that story. Yeah. Of like, Hey woman who’s trying to be like Steve Jobs. Yeah. [00:54:00] We’re gonna kick you to the curve. Yeah. And she also lied and cheated.

Cathy: Yeah. She also had a history because of her parents and her life. And she had also been raped and had all these experiences that were, you know, pretty negative to say the least. And her, you know, the guy, Sonny Wanni, I think was her. You know, partner, and I’m impressed with these names you’re

Todd: pulling out.

Cathy: Yeah. I don’t know where they’re coming from in my brain, but I, you know, he wasn’t a great influence either. Um, and he’s in prison as well, I think.

Todd: Are you ready for the next category? Yes.

Cathy: Um, let me say one more thing about imposter syndrome, because I wanna give it, um, an understanding of why we have it.

Cathy: So a more clinical perspective. Why do we have imposter syndrome? Because we all tend to have it, like even high achievers, everybody. Um, social comparison. Um, we see confident, you know, uh, curated versions of other people and assume that. We’re the only ones struggling. This is something, again, I could bring this into the parenting part, but it’s something I tell my girls all the time is they will [00:55:00] say, oh no, this person’s fine.

Cathy: They were laughing at school today. They’re fine. I’m like, you have no idea what’s going on inside that. What’s

Todd: going on? Yeah. Behind the scenes

Cathy: people hide it. Um, internalized messages is also a reason we have imposter syndrome. Cultural. What’s like inner

Todd: critic stuff, you mean? Well,

Cathy: cultural, racial, gender bias can plant beliefs in us.

Cathy: You don’t belong here. Just like we were saying, that could have happened with Elizabeth Holmes or with, we were talking about something at the beginning about women having more imposter syndrome. Yeah. You know, gender bias. You’re not good enough. Perfectionism where we, this is especially true for women where we feel like we have to know everything and do everything right before we can put ourselves out there.

Todd: Unless you listen to Amy PO’s podcast, sweetie. I

Cathy: love that podcast.

Todd: And why is it that I just, it’s that up done

Cathy: with the a hundred percent.

Todd: Yeah. No more. Let’s quit trying to be so good and so she. Specifically does not over prepare or even prepare that much for her interview

Cathy: that she does very much.

Cathy: Really? She just is gonna have fun. Yeah. Is what she, I I don’t think it has anything to literally do with preparation. I think what she was talking about, [00:56:00] she talked about this with Rashida Jones and Michelle Obama. She was like, enough with us thinking we have to be a hundred percent. Yeah. Do you know when there’s a job listing, if there’s a, like, I don’t know what the statistic is, but if there’s like 10 things on there and five of them a man can’t do, he doesn’t care.

Cathy: He’s like, I’m still gonna apply for that job.

Yeah.

Cathy: A woman looks at that job listing and says, well, I have to learn these five things and then I’ll go do it. Yeah. Right. Like there, it’s a gender bias, you know? And then, um, lack. And then the last one, which I think is the most obvious is lack of representation.

Cathy: Being the only one in the room who looks like you. The only woman, the only black woman, the only, you know, uh, we could do sexuality, we could do gender, we could do any nationality where you don’t, you’re like. Am I supposed to be there? Here and will people support me? So it, there’s reasons why we have imposter syndrome and it’s not about, you know, people who are like, oh, I never have it.

Cathy: That’s not really possible. We all have it a little bit. Um, I even remember having it when I first had kids mm-hmm. Being like, am I a mom? Yeah. Right. Like, it, it [00:57:00] takes a while. So speaking of parent, like you

Todd: bang on the moon. All right. Uh, parenting. I don’t know what I got for this. Let me see if I have anything for parenting. Uh, just some random kind of like, I guess life lessons. Uh, children watch how we handle our own failures more than they listen to our advice we’ve been talking about. Sure. That, that on Zen parenting forever.

Todd: Um. Our kids live in an era of filters and curated perfection, and Milli Vanilli kind of emulated that. Perfect. So I thought that there’s a lot of interesting parts to that. Um, some of it’s all, oh, autotune. So I don’t know if this belongs as parenting category, but I sometimes get annoyed at famous singers that Auto-Tune themselves.

Todd: And maybe I shouldn’t be, but like how it, the auto tuning is just one step [00:58:00] further is Milli Vanilli. Yeah. Like, that’s not your voice. Mm-hmm. But we all accept it as if that’s our voice.

Cathy: I think it’s a really good point, and when we’re discussing this is that there are definitely people, people who become famous, who have albums, who are played on the radio and considered stars who are not the best singers.

Cathy: Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely true. I, I even remember, you know, way back when Madonna would say. I know I’m not the best singer, I just know I’m a great performer. Mm-hmm. And just that kind of, and not that, you know, Madonna’s walking around with a ton of humility, but I thought that was at least a humble thing to say.

Cathy: Do you wanna

Todd: hear a clip I have from Madonna talking about Milli Vanilli?

No way. In the end, the idea is, are you moved by this piece of music, or aren’t you the whole, even the whole Milli Vanilli bru, you know, thing. I, I think it was really unfair to, to torture, to torture those guys. If someone came up to you on the street and they said, look, that would be, you wanna, I’ll make, I’ll make you a star and, uh, all you have to do is look great.

You know, would you say No? I mean, most people I think would’ve grabbed at the [00:59:00] chance your everyday Joe on the street, which is, I think if anybody was gonna be hanged in the square, it was a producer who was responsible for it. He’s the one who put the whole thing together. This public blogging of people, you know, is so ridiculous.

So pointless. ’cause in the end, if Paula Abdul or Milli Vanilli or whoever made a record and it brought joy to somebody’s life who Sure.

Todd: Yeah. There’s Madonna.

Cathy: Yeah. I, how interesting that I would bring her up and you would have that. That’s kind of cool. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I agree. And I also think, you know, there’s so many artists that are so curated.

Cathy: Yeah. Like they are, they bring them in, they give them a new look. They Auto-Tune their sound. They tell them what to wear. They give them choreography. Like, it’s so not, you know, real, real. Yeah. You know, like I was just noticing the, um, I just saw today the trailer for the Bruce Springsteen movie with Jeremy Allen White.

Todd: Is it a documentary? No, it’s, no. ’cause he’s, it’s a, it’s a movie. It’s, it’s an acted movie. Okay.

Cathy: Jeremy Allen White. Okay. The Bear,

Todd: the guy from the [01:00:00] Bear.

Cathy: Um, I, same, right. He plays,

Todd: he plays the boss.

Cathy: He plays the boss. Oh, wow. Yeah. And um, you know. It, it kind of starts, I think the movie, it goes back in time, but it really kind of starts around when he is making the, the album Nebraska and about his whole thing.

Cathy: I think it even said he, um, sang the whole thing in his own room.

Oh wow.

Cathy: Like his actual bedroom. Yeah. And part of that is because of his history and his childhood and his trauma and you know, who plays his dad?

Todd: Who?

Cathy: The dad on adolescence.

Todd: Ooh, the Brit dude. The Brit dude. Yeah.

Cathy: I love that guy. I love that guy too.

Cathy: Yeah. So anyway, he and his whole thing was, I want something stripped down, just me, my voice, my instrument. And he wanted it to be all him. And that was, I think Nebraska came out right before he did, born in the USA. It was like the beginning of his like meteoric rise. Um, and so, you know, it’s just interesting how.

Cathy: And, and do we have room for both, right? [01:01:00] Like, yeah. You know, I would say most performances on like, let’s say the Super Bowl, the perform, except for Kendrick, he kind of was on his, he did his own thing. And I don’t know, I just think a lot of performances during the Super Bowl are like super curated. It’s not real, you know, it’s a lot of like, if not lip syncing, there’s a lot of like voiceover.

Cathy: I don’t know. It don’t, aren’t we used to this? You know? You think so? I, I just think that we, you know, we just, we accept it maybe, but you know, they love to

sue us. Kendrick? Yeah. That song that was six, oh, maybe I think about Know what? I slow it down. Say, ladies do me this song,

Todd: he comes back and plays it.

Todd: Sweetie.

Cathy: I love that. Performance is one of my favorites of all time. And we, Todd and I went back and watched it a little bit ago ’cause Todd was doing the dishes during the live performance, washing the dishes. I didn’t know who Kendrick was

Todd: back then. I mean, I’ve heard of him, but I never, I’ve never spent any time consuming any of his [01:02:00] art and

kdot.

Todd: Um, and then, you know, we had a little date night and had a drink and watched it and it was really, really good.

Cathy: And there’s so much to that performance. Oh

Todd: yeah.

Cathy: Um, and we, we still

Todd: pop Turing on that.

Cathy: Well, I think that has been done.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: I think we, I don’t think we’re the right people to do that. Um, so anyway, that is so parental guidance.

Cathy: Any more there, Todd? No. Okay. So a few things that I just wanna pull out as far as imposter syndrome with parenting. So some things to think about, um, what it looks like, how we show up, all the things. So as parents. Um, what are the imposter syndrome? You know, things that we have, first of all, feeling like we’re not doing enough.

Cathy: Sure. Okay. I feel that way all the time, even though I’m trying to cover every base I can.

Todd: Well, I’ll give you an example.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: Um, let’s pretend. Our kids are six, four, and two, and I’m in charge and you’re out, whatever, grocery shopping, right? Yoga. Mm-hmm. And I’m on the couch and they’re all on their [01:03:00] iPads.

Todd: And then the minute I hear your car drive up, I pull the iPads out of their hands and pretend you’re, and pretend I’m playing with them.

Cathy: I know.

Todd: That would be an example of just lying, I guess.

Cathy: Yeah. And, and in that case, are you feeling that you’re not doing enough or are you trying to pretend that you’re doing more?

Cathy: I’m trying

Todd: to look good.

Cathy: Yeah, you are trying to look good. That was one of our arguments, Todd, uh, when the kids were little, um, just to kind of take us back in time. I remember when, um, where we, I remember when, okay, we’re gonna go back in time. Where I would be, you know, with the kids, play with them, feed them, you know, make it a game, you know, lay on the floor with them.

Cathy: Play figurines, which you knew I could not stand. We called it playing people. Um, do all those things. And then I would be like, I have to go. And you’d be like, I’ll be in charge. And I would come home and you would be asleep. Yeah. And I’d be like, wait a second. They’re fine. And you would say, they’re fine.

Cathy: They’re safe. I, sweetie, I really had to take a [01:04:00] nap. Which you weren’t wrong. They were safe. But I was like, why is it up to me to be the stimulating parent? Mm-hmm. Like, why do I have to be the one to do all the things that stimulate their brain and connection, but you get to relax while you’re with them.

Cathy: That made no sense. Yeah. And we, that was just one of those many parenting arguments that we tend to have, um, in life. It wasn’t just us, other people did too. Sure. Another parenting imposter syndrome. Second, guessing your choices constantly. You know, if it’d be, did I make the right choice? Did I say the right thing?

Cathy: Did I overdo it? Um, believing that everybody else is doing it better. Um, this one we do not do, but one of these imposter syndrome things is avoiding parenting conversations with others or your partner. What does that mean? Gimme an example. Like, you don’t wanna talk with your friends or your partner about parenting because you don’t want them to bring up things that you may or may not be doing.

Oh, okay.

Cathy: You know, you’re like gonna avoid that conversation altogether. Um, like, uh, holding back from taking leadership in your community, like you don’t wanna be the PTA person, [01:05:00] you don’t wanna be the, the, you know, person. Who’s in charge of the classroom? What’d they call that room mom or whatever. It should just be room parent.

Todd: No, it’s room mom. Sydnee

Cathy: should be a dad too. Yeah, but because you feel like you couldn’t do it or that people won’t, you know, think you’re good at it. Um, something a lot of people do, which we already discussed, overcompensating with perfectionism, um, downplaying our strengths. It’s something, you know what, Ted, I’m gonna get in your case about this for a second.

Todd: Let’s pretend you never said that, sweetie.

Cathy: You, you downplay things a lot, like where you’ll be like, I know, I probably don’t know this, but. Do you know that you do that a lot?

Todd: I have no idea what you’re talking about sometimes. Am I doing it right now by saying, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Cathy: You’re like, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But I’m gonna say to you, I don’t, sometimes you’ll on this show, or even just if we’re having a conversation, you’ll be like, I don’t really, I’m not the right one to talk about this, but here’s what I think. Or I’m gonna throw you

Todd: my opinion, even though there’s other people that know more about this.

Cathy: Well, that’s a different way to say it, right? I’m gonna throw you my opinion, which I believe in, even though there’s other experts. Valid. But saying something [01:06:00] like, I don’t really know anything about this, that’s not

Todd: true. And, and what’s the impact of me saying something like that? Giving away my power or

Cathy: your power?

Cathy: And it also, it like starts everything off on a ugh. Like, then why am I listening?

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: You know, if you really don’t know anything about this, why are you saying it? It’s

Todd: there is this really, next time I do it, catch me and, ’cause I’m, I’m, I probably do do it. I just can’t think of any example.

Cathy: Or you’ll start things that I know why you do this, this, this example I’m gonna give, I know why you do it, but you’ll say things like, um.

Cathy: Well, I’m not a perfect parent.

Yeah.

Cathy: But, and it’s like you’re, you’re rationalizing too much. You’re, you can say there are many ways to do this. Yeah. The way that it, so you’re not like downplaying your, uh, effectiveness. Yeah. But you also have enough humility to realize there’s many different ways to do something.

Cathy: Right. So, and you know, back at you, if I do that mm-hmm. You can call me out as well. So let’s do that. All right. Um, so let’s see. Blah, blah, blah. Let’s see if there’s anything else. You know, struggling to model [01:07:00] self-compassion. You know, like the ability, like self-compassion is one of those things where. We might feel like we may have the old messaging that beating ourselves up and making us feel like crap internally is what changes our behavior or makes us better people we know from research, um, I mean this is like done deal.

Cathy: That that kind of self shaming does not help at all. It doesn’t change behavior, it decreases our energy. It, um, it makes us disconnect from ourselves. We trust ourselves less. Nothing good comes from it. Self-compassion though, is our ability to realize we made a mistake, own it, but also treat ourselves like we treat a friend.

Mm.

Cathy: And so, you know, that’s, that’s a solution to imposter syndrome, really. Sure. Um, so any other parenting things? Nope. You ready for

Todd: the next one? What

Cathy: did it teach us?

Todd: Well, it started out, um, I just have a bunch of like quotes.

[01:08:00] Okay. Let’s hear

Todd: it. Um, and I didn’t even come up with them, but I think it’s relevant. Um. What it teaches truth, the truth eventually comes out. Yep. Sure does. Uh, so it’s better to leave with authenticity. Uh, what else do I have? Um, people often judge the face of the scandal, but not the system that created it.

Todd: Totally. Um, you can rebuild after failure, but only if you stop pretending it didn’t happen. Yes. You have to own it. Own it. Make accountability. Yeah. I’m, I’m getting pretty good at owning it. I don’t, I just, recently I did something bad with our, one of my kids and I’m like, I, I screwed that up.

Cathy: You didn’t do something bad.

Cathy: Sometimes you say things that I think you say it off the cuff and you’re used to being around men, maybe. Yes. And, and I’m not trying to genderize this so much, but it really does. You’ll always say like, A guy wouldn’t mind if I said that, but it’s too harsh.

Yeah.

Cathy: And um, and, and it doesn’t mean girls aren’t, are weak or they can’t handle it.

Cathy: They handle it fine, but they’re kind of like, [01:09:00] that’s not, that’s rude.

Todd: Right?

Cathy: Like they call it out as what it is. Well,

Todd: there’s no tuning in.

Cathy: Yeah. And it’s like, but why are you saying it that way? There’s like a million different ways to say it.

Todd: Last one. Uh, you can be both complicit and exploited. And I think that really, uh, encapsulates this scandal.

Cathy: I think most situations like this are complicity and exploitation. Like you went along with it, but you were not the architect of it. Yeah. You know, I think that’s so true. So

what do you got?

Cathy: My big life lesson lessons Image can carry you but only for so long. Yeah. Like you’ve gotta have something underneath.

Cathy: Um. Fame without authenticity is totally fragile. Um, music industry and society overall, um, values, looks over voice.

Mm-hmm.

Cathy: Which, you know, uh, scape, this is your, what you just said, but scapegoating happens really fast.

Yep.

Cathy: Um, and then, uh, this is what imposter syndrome teaches us. Okay. Yeah. So switching gears, [01:10:00] feeling like a fraud doesn’t mean you are one.

Yep.

Cathy: Okay. Um, we internalize impossible standards, especially women. Uh, we internalize this idea that we have to be excellent at everything and that is completely impossible. We can be okay at most things and excellent at a few, um, and we can always ask for help and say we don’t have all the information we need.

Cathy: But it’s scary for women to do that because they’re so easily discounted Yeah. In society that we fear that if we show up in any way that is unprepared, then we are not. Showing up in a way to be respected. Um, self-doubt. It thrives in silence. And so you have to, you have to talk about it. And, um, two more success can feel scary.

Cathy: Yeah. Like when you start to have some success. Oh no. Yeah, it’s terrifying. And then the last one is you don’t have to feel confident to be real, which is kind of one of my favorites. Like,

Todd: being real means you’re scared.

Cathy: Exactly. And you don’t like, I, I, that’s like my [01:11:00] goal all the time. Like, I actually did a podcast, your friend’s podcast or my friend’s podcast, Sean and Chris’s podcast.

Cathy: Um, and they asked me a question at the end, like, I think something to the effect of, what would you wanna be known for? Or something. And I think I, it was off the cuff and so I said that I was kind, but like five minutes later I was like, no, that’s not what I want at all. What I wanna be known as is myself, that someone would say after I wasn’t here.

Cathy: I, it’s not about the successes or anything that they’d say, oh, she just lived as herself. Yeah. Like there’s nothing That’s the greatest compliment. Yeah. That anyone could give me or anybody else. I’d hope so. Let’s go. Here we go.

Todd: Nobody puts K in a corner. Nobody puts baby in a corner. Uh, I have one. Only one.

Cathy: So this is cringe or classic, right?

Todd: It is.

Cathy: Okay. So when you say you only have one, what do you mean?

Todd: I have one thing I’m going to play that I’m deciding [01:12:00] was very cringey. Okay, let’s do it. So I watched it and I thought the most cringey moment was gonna be when it skipped girl.

Todd: You know it’s girl, you know it’s girl know it’s girl, you know it. But it’s this part and I just wanna like honor these two guys because they did a press conference. Oh boy. After the scandal. Oh boy. Blew up. Maybe they did it because they didn’t feel like they had a choice, but they faced the fire for over an hour and these reporters were relentless.

Todd: Oh, I bet. I just mean to these, this guy from Germany, this other guy from France. But there’s a part where the reporter like asks him to prove that he could sing. No. And they

Cathy: Are you gonna make me listen to that? I

Todd: am. Here we go.

For that. You make a pact with the devil. Go. I think you should go with this tape.

We give you each a tape. You can take it to a scientist. Scientist. Okay. A devil said fuck it. Let’s not do it. Let’s do it. Girl. You know it.[01:13:00]

I’m in love with you. Girl. You don’t wanna think.

Todd: So Fabs comes in, Fab’s actually a little bit better singer than Rob. Rob is the man who passed away. Fabs is the one who was part of the documentary and he, he ends up having a decent voice, but I was just like, my skin was crawling.

Cathy: Oh, that’s just a setup.

Todd: I know.

Cathy: I mean, you know, and I’m sure nobody gave the media training for that. No, they were on their own. They were. Oh. Uh, what do you have for cringe

Todd: your

Cathy: class? You know what? I don’t have any clips or anything to play. I just wrote, it’s all pretty cringe. Okay.

Todd: Um, uh, best quote, hold on, let me go to it.

May the force be with you.

May the force be with you. May the force be with you. May the force be with you.

Todd: May the force be with you. So interesting that Yodas says, may the force be with you when he usually speaks in riddles in most of the other thing.

Cathy: Force be with you at May. Yeah.

Todd: Something like that. Um, okay. So I have a [01:14:00] few, uh, quotes.

Todd: This one was from Rob. We were not the only guilty ones. We were just the ones who got caught.

Cathy: Yes. Amen. This is

Todd: from Fab. When you don’t feel seen, you don’t, you’ll do anything to be noticed.

Mm.

Todd: Hallelujah. Right?

Oh, true.

Todd: You ready for this one?

Yep.

Todd: Maya Angelou.

Okay.

Todd: I when

you know better, you do better?

Todd: Nope. Oh, I’ve written 11 books, but each time I think, uh oh, they’re gonna find out now.

Cathy: Yes. That’s how I feel too.

Todd: Um, and it’s funny, when I went through the search, I have sometimes used chat. GPT. This one is from Kathy Cassani Adams Stop. It’s said

Cathy: it wasn’t in chat.

Todd: Yes, it was. It was not. No. I I also feed a lot of our stuff to chat.

Todd: Okay. But, but let’s just assume that they just picked this up. Oh, that’s so cool. The deepest pain is believing you’re, now tell me if you’ve even said this.

Yeah, I gotta, I wonder the

Todd: deepest pain is believing you’re not enough. The greatest free freedom is realizing you always were,

Cathy: uh, [01:15:00] uh, I don’t think I said that.

Cathy: I think, I don’t know. Maybe I wrote that somewhere. But it sounds like it’s a takeoff of the quote at the beginning of restoring our girls and that it got kind of messed up. Yeah, because it’s the rupi. Um, it’s, sorry, I have the book right behind me. Can you hold on? Sure.

Todd: Babe, go ahead.

Cathy: The Ruby Cayo quote that’s at the beginning of restoring our girls.

Cathy: I think they probably took it. What’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn that since day one, she’s already had everything she needs within herself. It’s the world that convinced her she did not, and it’s not my quote. Mm-hmm. But did Is that it? No. Close to that.

Todd: The quote is, deepest pain is believing you’re not enough.

Todd: The greatest freedom is realizing you always were. Who knows. I may be, I mean, I’ve written a bit frighten for 20 years. Let, let’s just say you said it. Um, okay. And then my last one is from Adam Grant. Okay. Imposter syndrome is not a sign of incompetence. It’s a sign of consciousness. True. You’re,

Cathy: you’re aware.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: You’re, you’re conscious of what you’re doing. And that’s the thing is like, the only way [01:16:00] that you and I are capable, or I’ll speak for myself, that I am capable of writing a book or doing a substack every week or doing a podcast that I’m putting out into the masses, is knowing that I don’t have to get it all right.

Cathy: And that if people have an opinion about it, that’s okay. And that I will listen. Yeah. Um, that keeps me like, like if you’re a rigid tree, your branches break. Right. But if you are a tree in the wind, if you’re like, oh yeah, I, I’m open to new information, like I said before, I don’t have to be the only one who knows and I can, I feel like I can change beliefs based on new information.

Cathy: Of course, we all, so maybe not values, but I can change understanding.

Todd: Yep. Uh, do you have anything?

Cathy: I, the one quote that I wrote down was, it was Rob and this is when they were still Milli Vanilli and, you know, crushing it. He said, we’re more talented than Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Nick Jagger.

Yeah.

Yikes.

Cathy: Yeah, like Oasis said something like, the two guys, the brothers in Oasis, I think they said something like, we [01:17:00] are better than Jesus. Or maybe that was John Lennon. John

Todd: Lennon said, and Babe Ruth said I had a better, um, there’s a few examples of somebody in that’s famous that says they did better than, you know, the Beatles or Jesus or something like that.

Todd: Yeah. But, um,

Cathy: so where are they now?

Todd: Uh, where are they now? Where brought you now? Where uh, what do you got babe? I got nothing.

Cathy: So we already talked about Rob. He died on April 3rd, 1998. Um, he was 32. Um, drug and alcohol addiction, as you already explained. His death was ruled, accidental. Um, and supposedly it was right before he and Fab were preparing to release a new album called Back and In Attack.

Cathy: I don’t know if I like that title. Yeah, probably not. Um, so Fab, um, he’s alive, active. Um, he was born in 1966, so that makes him about 57, 58 years old. He lives in Amsterdam with his partner. They have four [01:18:00] children. He’s had a solo album, ex, et cetera. And it sounds like he’s a motivational speaker.

Yeah.

Cathy: Um, so, you know, that’s kind of where things got left with them.

Todd: Ready for music game. I am.

That

Todd: song.

Cathy: I

Todd: never know if we should explain the rules to certain categories.

Cathy: Do it really quick. All right, so music game, just as a reminder for everybody, is a song that captures the vibe of this podcast. So it’s not playing a Milli Vanilli song, it’s what is the vibe of what we’re talking about here today and what kind of captures the feeling and what we’re trying to share.

Cathy: So this is a game, Todd and I play all the time anyway, not just on the podcast. And we get really competitive about it because it, you want it to be something that you can fight for, right? So you’re gonna go first.

Todd: Uh, I don’t feel like I need to fight for it. Not that I’m gonna win. Okay. But I think it’s just very obvious.

Todd: Okay. Um, so here we go.[01:19:00]

Todd: Um, this is not Ice, ice baby, ice baby. Uh, this is Queen and David Bowie. Mm-hmm. Doing Under Pressure. And I just thought about what these two young men felt like when they were lip syncing. Right. Almost getting caught, getting a lot of money doing it. I just, I, I would not handle that pressure well at all.

Todd: And I can only imagine how they did. And it kind of has kind of an open, spacious vibe to it, the music itself. Um, I don’t know, it just kind of, uh, it just reminded me a little bit of some of their music. That’s

Cathy: the

Todd: vibe. Yeah.

Cathy: Yeah. I like it. I like it. And it, and the words definitely capture it. So I would give you, today, I would give that like a b.

Okay.

Cathy: So my choice, and I have a feeling, you may not even know this [01:20:00] song, it’s, uh, called Wishing Well. Mm-hmm. And it’s by Terrence Trent Darby, but he actually changed his name to Sananda, um, re Sananda re So just put in wishing well, and I’m sure it’ll show

Uping. Well just,

you know, this song.

Todd: No, well I think I’ve heard it.

Cathy: So the reason I thought of Terence Trent Darby, and I know he has changed his name, but I’m just using that ’cause that’s what he went by in the eighties. It’s the whole song. So first of all, it’s kind of got this like smooth, confident vibe, you know, just like, you know, Millie Vanilli did, it’s kind of r and b, it’s kind of Poppy.

Cathy: Um, and he had the story that came out about him. First of all, he was a real cocky guy. Like he was one who said, um. That his album is better than Sergeant Pepper’s. He’s the generation’s answer to [01:21:00] Elvis. Like he had a total cocky vibe, which you always know there’s an insecurity underneath that. Right. And he definitely had, um, you know, he was later able to say that he thought if he performed well enough, maybe no one would see that he was scared or insecure.

Cathy: Like there’s this whole story. And so he was, you know, confident and outspoken just like these guys. He, you know. But he totally got torched in the media. Oh wow. Just like these guys did. Um, there was a lot of backlash. Um, he was called arrogant, difficult, ungrateful. And then he later said that his confidence was part persona, part self-protection, and it all collapsed under the weight of expectation.

Oh.

Cathy: So it kind of felt like the same story. No, it’s really good. And then in the two thousands he changed his name to Sananda Mireya because he didn’t wanna be Terence Trent Darby anymore.

Todd: Um, I’m gonna skip trivia because I don’t have any good ones. Okay. If you’re okay with that. Sure. But I do wanna play the, uh, towards the end of this documentary.

Todd: It is fab, uh, [01:22:00] singing in front of an audience and you kind of hear him over, he’s narrating a little bit and then you hear his singing voice, uh, for blame it on the rain. It’s really good. So that’s gonna take us out. Is that okay?

Cathy: Sure. So, so that’s it.

Todd: That’s it.

Cathy: Okay. So thanks for listening everybody, and just a little bit of fab as we leave.

When people think of Milli Vanilli, the one thing I want people to think of is that when you fall, you can’t stand back up. You

rob. It’s part of that. I am honoring his name every time. A performance age. He sounds good, doesn’t he? You fall, you stand back up and you reinvent yourself. Yeah. Amen. Fab. He’s a good singer. He, that sounds good.

Todd: Um, that’s it. So I see the podcast. Bye everybody. [01:23:00] Bye.

Round two. Change a little bit. And change a little bit. Pretty pleasant.

Pulling a Milli Vanilli: How Pop’s Biggest Scandal Became a Metaphor for Imposter Syndrome Episode #824

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