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I'm Alec Baldwin. Listen to my podcast, here's the thing on I heart radio, it's my chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers.

I always like to say I like being an actress, but I love being Kristen. So I've prioritized that a little bit more than my, like, desire to spread my wings or prove to people that I can be some dramatic actress.

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I can always respect someone who can speak their truth and and sit in the heat. She's been called the most controversial person on the Internet. I was just such a bitter, twisted, angry woman. I would hate me too. Outspoken actress Jameela Jamil reveals her secret struggles. I tried to kill myself. I also was suicidal and it's happened twice in my life behind her public feuds.

Everyone has a limit of how much you can eat. They had to kick me off of all of my social media when I was like 14. Why she turned against me. Forgive me for being this blunt.

I don't know if I like this woman. Wait a minute. Now, her bold transformation. It is an act of rebellion to love yourself. I'm looking at you and I'm like, that's a real courage. You are speaking my life.

We have a great guest today. She describes herself as a rebel. You can just call me a crash test dummy. That's why I'm disaster. No good with stairs not to stand up to the table. So I was just reading that you have an eight year experiment and you are the experiment. Explain, explain. Eight years ago, I'd start off as cheerfully as possible, OK?

I tried to kill myself because I had a nervous breakdown. And it was the second time I tried and I, I thought, well, I'm just going to do it again. If something huge doesn't change, if everything doesn't change. Yeah. So I decided to try and figure out my trauma. What had taken me to this low point, this young woman, I was on television. I was this like it God, I had attention, all these different things that I was told my whole life would make me happy.

And I was so unhappy. I was so lonely, so miserable.

And I realized after seeking help, I had very severe depression and that my depression was caused by repressed rage.

And upon realizing that, I was like, OK, I have to just completely change everything. I was a very well behaved, repressed young woman who was being stuck in this box that was too small for me. I'm huge.

So I decided to just get rid of my filter to mixed results on the Internet. Right. And I decided to just never hold anything in ever again. And so while I understand that it's not always the most responsible position to take, especially when you are a public figure, this has just been my personal journey to try to not kill myself again. What was that last straw that made you decide? This is it. I'm going to try to take my life.

At the time, I had pneumonia, but I was still able to go to work, but I wasn't able to lie down and sleep. And I was also a D.J. So I was deejaying all night, coming back, working myself to the bone, because also as a woman, you're always told that you have a sprint marathon. And so you never say no to a job, right? You never say no to an opportunity. Right. I was working myself to death.

Everything was falling apart. And I think I just reached my limit. Everyone has a limit of how much you can eat this world and my my cup of runneth over my. And so I was like, right.

I just I can't I can't do this. I can't take the pain or the loneliness or the numbness any longer. I just like what is the point. I'm not contributing anything to anyone. Everyone would be better off without me. That's that, that's often a narrative suicidal people have that.

I feel like when she said repressed rage you. Yeah. Brocaded I had the same experience, got a level of success, pretty much got everything I had asked for and had basically what I believe is a nervous breakdown and also was suicidal.

And it's happened twice in my life. And I found that the same thing, that it was all based upon repressed rage. I was sitting on so much rage then was covering my sorrow and despair. Mm.

Did you have a numb feeling of depression? Was your depression? I'm so sad. I'm lying down, I'm eating ice cream, listening to sad songs. Or was yours a kind of numbness of detachment. It was a numbness and detachment. This is my theory that comes from literally zero schooling. Sorry, I take this with a life just goes.

Yeah, but the reason I think we've become numb when we have repressed rage is because there is a dishonesty in it. You are lying not only to yourself, but you're lying to everyone that you're OK when you're not. Yeah, I think that that creates a kind of like moed almost between who you really are and who you're projecting yourself as. And in that space is where the numbness lies that you are. You are existing outside of your own body.

And I think that we also think of depression because the way that it's been relayed and media and music has always sadness. We get out of bed when I was high functioning. Yeah.

When you talk about kind of being outside of your body, I can definitely relate to that, because during the time when I was self harming myself and in that, like, really deep black hole, I felt exactly that, like it almost didn't matter. I can do this to myself and I don't even really feel this that numbness I don't feel on the outside, don't feel on the inside. But it's like I don't even feel that way. So it makes it even more difficult.

Yeah.

You know, you lose respect for yourself. Yes. You lose respect for your own life with you understand. Because I thought any problem that you had was my fault. Yeah, well, it's not true. No, no, I know that now. But my problems were your fault.

I've come here today to confront you.

It's amazing to talk about this because I don't feel like enough people talk about the dark side. Yeah, it was project online, you know. Yeah, I realized that I had everything wrong, everything backwards. I was just such a bitter, twisted, angry woman. Everyone's present self comes from who they were in the past. But were there any, like, key points in your childhood that you think you were like, OK, no, I'm going to hold on to this feeling and I'm going to bring it with me.

I think sometimes you can't help but take it with you because the harm is so intense when you're so little. I was abused as a child growing up in a household full of so many. So like. Devastatingly mentally unwell people with like we had like bipolar in my household, paranoid schizophrenia in my household, depression, manic depression, addiction, OCD, like really just debilitating OCD. And so I didn't have anyone that I wasn't looking after. So no one was able to look after me because I was the only person who who wasn't suffering from a type of psychosis or mental illness at the time.

Right. And so I kind of grew up smoke thinking, well, you know, I'm I'm fine. I'm the strong one. I'm stoic. And I developed this weird like, yeah, it's like still right around how under like, unfazed I am.

I'm not. I'm from England and so we like totally stiff upper lip hold everything inside. And we consider that to be like very, very valiant and honorable. Yeah, we feel that way in the black community.

It's like to be able to just endor whatever and be like that and have put on your big girl panties.

Yeah. What was South Asians like? You're not even allowed to say that you're troubled, you're not allowed to go to therapy because then it's a sign that you're dishonoring your family. You should never feel shame about seeking help for a mental health problem, just like you wouldn't feel shame for seeking help for a sore throat. We don't look at it as a very, very natural human experience. Everyone is carrying some sort of trauma. You don't have to have just gone to a war zone to come back with PTSD.

Right. And I think because we only look to very big dramatic moments as markers of what trauma can be caused by.

A lot of people missed the signs.

Yeah, I can always respect someone who can speak the truth and and sit in the heat. I know that when you went on social media talked about having an abortion.

Was that part of your healing process? Yeah. So it was tried to kill myself. Starts to investigate why I wanted to kill myself, tried to save my own life. And then once you step out of the worst part of mental illness, it feels like stepping out of a club forum. Right where it's only when you're outside on the quiet street that you can hear how loud it wasn't that you were like, oh, my God, I was in that.

Yes. And so once my mind was clear, I started to pay attention. There was this one particular event that set me off in like a bigger way than I'd ever been, like, pissed off before where I'd gotten this big job on the radio. It's like one of the biggest drops in radio history in the UK. I was the first woman in 60 years I'd ever have been given this role. And the day that my first focus got announced, I'd gained like two hundred thousand listeners, which never happens.

You always, as they reported, all of my male colleagues, listeners and all they reported on me was a picture of me having gained weight. They didn't care about how many listeners I'd gained. They cared about how many pounds I'd gained and all these photographs ridiculing my size.

And I realized, oh, my God, you can't even see me. You just need to know one thing right over the airwaves.

Right? And I was like, oh, God, that's still all I'm worth. After everything I've achieved, after everything that women have achieved, we are still valued only by the numbers on a scale. Yes.

And then I was pissed and that just became the first part of me, just being like, you don't I'm just going to say whatever I want all the time. And it was addictive to you. Start telling me. You can't. I can. It's relentless. Yes, we know.

Yes.

Because also I realize the more authentic you become. You'll find that people. Well, kinda. Fall away as much as people like I got to keep it real, I need to be true. It seems as though when somebody is practicing real authenticity, people like, oh no, that's too much. Right? Then when they see it, they're like they're like, oh, yeah. Oh, this is exactly let me tell you, any authentic life is messy and it comes with some deep battle scars.

But news with a new perspective. I'm more Hanwood in Washington, D.C., news with a black perspective. I'm Mike Stevens in Tampa. The Black Information Network is the first all news, audio and digital network for and by the black community dedicated to 24/7 news and information. I'm Julius White in Atlanta. Get the podcast and get the biggest news in business stories delivered to you every morning. I'm Vanessa Tyler in New York. Subscribe to the Black Information Network daily and wake up with the latest from the Black Information Network.

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What do explores an army officer at a Minnesota insurance salesman have in common? They all wanted to be the first to reach the North Pole, but only one of them made it. I'm Katlehong, science editor at Mental Floss and host of the new podcast The Quest for the North Pole, which dives into the centuries long race to explore the Arctic, find the Northwest Passage and conquer the top of the world with a cast of daring adventurers and some pretty determined amateurs, the race to the poll reveals the human desire to solve mysteries of geography and the soul.

We'll look at the important Arctic expeditions that filled the blank spaces on the map and recognize how indigenous people made them successful. We'll examine what pushed explorers to venture ever farther into the unknown and uncharted and how the climate crisis is changing the Arctic today. Listen to the quest for the North Pole every Friday on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You've got to dress those battle scars and gold and ties and wear it like a crown, you know?

How did you get to the point where it didn't matter, where you didn't care what people thought about you?

That's my problem. I get really, really absorbed in what other people think about me.

I think realizing that I was OK with taking my own life was that for me, I was like, well, I have truly nothing to lose anymore.

And upon realizing that, I was like, OK, it is not your responsibility to be liked or understood or approved of by everyone, really.

Even when you say that again, I was always said that I was like, I never worry about being liked because it's a trick bag, because that's what that is the space of manipulation.

If you need somebody to like you, it will be too difficult for someone to to act from an authentic place.

Because the first thing you're thinking about is, OK, if I do this, there's going to be really, you know, and all of this.

But here's the deal. Most people have a difficult time like in themselves. So it's almost like, you know, begging someone to see your true image through a correct lens. It's not going to happen now. So you really need to spend the work on you when you everything always comes back to you.

So it doesn't it will if everything comes back to yourself in your own home, your first but is so important, you cleaning your own home first, understand your own behavior so that when you get through with all of that, we can get through with all that cleansing. You can come back to the world differently. Yeah, it is an act of rebellion to love yourself. Oh yeah. To acceptance and to be content. Yes, just women.

We are so trained to be so concerned with being likable, with being affectionate enough, with smiling all the time. Like we have so many expectations of how we're supposed to present ourselves with so much extra homework to do as women.

We're never supposed to stay thin for the rest of your life. You're supposed to always be on your best behavior, always be in a good mood, always be sexy, always be every single individual. Different person with different needs wants you to be all at the same time constantly.

Men are not given this extra homework to do. How are we ever going to catch up with agenda if we have all of this extra homework? And so I think it was realizing the injustice of me being asked to do all of these different things that my male friends were not asked to think about. Yeah, so they're just thinking about the prize. They're thinking about the end goal. They're thinking about their happiness. And I'm thinking about everyone else's happiness and trying to cheat gravity and time.

I wouldn't make the exact parallel. But Kimberly Latrice Jones, she's a wonderful writer and activist talking about what's going on currently within black rights in America. She was saying that they are lucky that all we're asking for is equality and revenge.

Right, right, right, right, right. That was real. And that was the most unbelievable sentence of the year. And I feel like in a lesser extent or in a different extent, the same potentially exists of men with women. My imagine how pissed we are.

And I know exactly. Imagine if we did onto them what they have done to us. I've heard so many people say, do you really think that the Metoo movement is actually going to help the evolution of women? Because, you know, we don't want men to feel threatened by. And I'm like. Yeah, that's the whole point, is to show that you can't do this anymore. There is a consequence, there is a loss, and you will lose your career or your job if you do do these things.

And almost like it's a preposterous thing now that there's consequences, I feel like it's up to us to be like, no boys will be boys. Boys will be held accountable for their actions.

And that's where we're moving toward. So, again, I know that you've learned some lessons in regards to judging people, have you, Djamila? Yeah, I was a real dick, really?

Honestly, not even that long ago, really. I was a misogynist. Really?

No, wait a minute. When I break it down, let me make sure I'm not a misogynist. I know. No, I don't think there's no way you could be as bad as I was. Like, I was bullied at school by girls and I didn't always have great relationships with all of the women in my family. And so I didn't have a good vibe of women growing up. And I would speak disparagingly about women. And I thought women, which always in drama, I had all this rage and I would project it at women at the nearest easiest target.

And so there is documented proof of me slut shaming loads of female celebrities like Miley, Beyonce and Rihanna, like Kim, all these different people excited.

And I was doing it because I was in pain like I was a troll. I thought I was doing feminism. I know you don't steer away from, like, the public views.

I was this slut shaming, woman hating. That's so interesting because now that vibe is like so I would have never thought that you would have done those things because people change and grow and grow and change. Yes.

And learn from their mistakes. One hundred percent. It's why I have not removed myself from society in spite of being asked too many people on Twitter.

And I understand the reason I don't is because I would like to be that proof that human beings can redeem themselves.

When did you realize or identify that behavior is like, oh, no, that doesn't work.

Years after it happened and I've been sexually assaulted and I did not make any connection to those two behaviors, so I'm sexually assaulted. I'm too afraid to confront my rapist. And so instead I get angry at all women who sexualize themselves because I blame them for why men have always sexualized me since I was a child. And I'm like, it's your fault.

That's the. Because you make them think that they have permission to my body, whereas that's never the case. And I was afraid deep down. And so that's how I projected my pain. That's deep, though. That is that that was a protection mechanism because of your fear. So it was like, OK, I can't go after I can't go after the the predator, the perpetrator, but I'm going to go after what it takes. Yeah.

The easy target. Yeah. And I'm still so ashamed that even though I understand why I did it, I think it's important to be accountable and hold yourself responsible for the fact that whatever happens to you, it might explain what you did, but it doesn't excuse it when you talk about that you were doing all this slut shaming and then you came into a place where you're like, OK, I got to change that.

Right.

I would imagine that you have a whole different perspective on cancer culture. I think we've had a lot of very privileged, powerful people come out and be like, I'm being canceled when they're just being criticized. Right.

It is very hard to cancel a privileged person. Right, because money and power, I mean, you can just shut up for a minute. Right. It's people who don't have privilege. You actually lose their jobs, who actually lose their houses, who actually maybe become homeless because they lost their job and couldn't make a medical bill. And so I think that it's really important for celebrities to stop crying about cancellation if they haven't actually lost a job. So understanding what cancelation means versus culture.

Yeah, call the call out. So our culture versus cancel culture. Exactly. I really believe in call-out culture. Everything I've learned, everything that's made me a better person is when I've been piled onto and called out by people online have made me a better person. I'm grateful for them. Even if I'm a bit sassy in the moment, I'm secretly learning and listening, educating myself, shutting up.

Sometimes there's never enough amount of regret. I have something that I've said in an angry moment, but I can't take it back and I won't take it back because women reserve the right to pick up and come back right when a man what amounts are about my thing.

But when a man makes a huge mistake, even like beats his wife up, he will get the big GQ article two years later.

He's being shot beautifully. He looks really pensive and photographed. And he'll be like, I went to rehab like I came from an abusive home. This on the other. And I respect all that. Right. But they'll be welcomed back. Like, what a brave man. He told us his whole story and he's really worked on himself. A woman never gets that opportunity. That's true. That's it. She's cast off and then she disappeared and she almost cancels herself.

We always remove ourselves when we think everyone doesn't like us and we've messed up. How do we know that he and that's why I'm looking at you. And I'm like, that's a real Kourtney. You didn't stop, like, posting or shy away from again, I love my publicist. I was like, no, because I feel it.

They have to kick me off of my Twitter and all of my social media when I was like fourteen because I was just like, never thought you'd make a great switchboard operator or seltzer man or professional royal mistress.

It's old timey jobs are your jam. We've got a podcast just for you.

I'm Helen Hong and I'm met beat and we host the new podcast Jobs Woolite, taking a look at jobs that used to be a thing and now not so much.

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I'm Alec Baldwin. Listen to my podcast, here's the thing I heart radio, it's my chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers like the actress Kristen Bell.

And the moment I said, you know what, I have a thing. And it's a quirky, weird, fun thing that can be snarky and I love doing it.

I do it pretty well. Why not lean into it? And that is when I felt like I started becoming happier.

Music legend Mick Fleetwood Fleetwood Mac was always about change so that you were accepted for who you were.

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That was the end of my medical practice and best selling author Isabel Wilkerson.

People come up to me of all different backgrounds. I would say to me, I had no idea that this happened in our country.

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Right, and everything I thought, and they had to take it away. Well, I mean, I wish I'd had anyone to do that for me, but I'm kind of glad I didn't, because it's important that women can see that you can survive. Yeah, you can get told off. You can get ridiculed, you can get lied about, you can be smeared and you can still come. Right. I would hate me too if I just knew me from what I read.

I'm like, yeah, like, yeah, look back.

What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned? Practice self defense of the mind. Yeah. You don't have to follow every single celebrity if they trigger you about your lifestyle, your clothing, about the way that you look about your skin. Like if you feel bad thoughts about yourself from looking at someone's page, it's OK to block, mute, delete, repeat. Yeah, it's vital actually. It's so vital for your mental health.

There's so much negativity out there. You really have to pay attention to what you're feeding yourself. And so many lies like this. Yes, there's so much Photoshop and like, you know, all these celebrities selling all these detox and diet products and waste trainers.

And it's like Internet powder that's going to make you fire for like three days. And I know that because I took all of them.

Well, it is unbelievable that my style is unbelievable, all the stuff that I do, because I'm so sorry. I know I'm never coming back. So get it all out there. I have horrified your mother. I did this really great little experiment where I followed all of my favorite women's magazines and I also followed all of my boyfriend's magazines. Devastating. See the difference between, like, how he's being nurtured and nourished all the time. And mine was all just to make me look thinner and younger.

And all the stories were just about like which hairstyle suits your face shape the most women made to feel insecure, like what else can we fix on you? And they make us insecure about every single inch of our bodies. I saw some very famous woman talking about needing her earlobes like redone yellow plastic. It's like I'm worried about rape. I'm worried about equity and equality. I'm worried about my reproductive rights being taken away. I don't want to worry about my mother.

Hello, I don't want to worry about my elbow, be cold out. This is what I think is so interesting and when I figured this out, it changed everything for me. It's a perfect cycle. You can go through any woman who has ever stood out or spoken out just done really well for a while. We build her up. We exaggerate how fantastic, how beautiful, how incredible she is that people start to become a little bit sick of her face.

That's when the destruction becomes easy because we have no empathy left for her. We have no sympathy. We don't trust her. When I first grew up, I adored you and like the nutty professor and everything you ever did before that I was obsessed with you. And then I started reading headlines about you around the time that Will was doing Wild Wild West. I remember the exact headline that maybe I don't know if I like this woman.

It was forgive me for being this blunt, but it was like Jada says, stay away from sexy Salma. Oh, my God. Quotations as if they knew you'd said it in the privacy of your own. You so much. No, I don't know what actually happens to be one of my favorite, for instance, one of my favorite women. But I believed the headlines that I read about you because you were just doing too well and your marriage was too happy.

And like, you're right that it is a cycle.

Yeah, I've been in that cycle quite a few times. Yeah. And you keep going. I love you. And it was because partially of this show and also just watching you come and speak out about so many things that just made me fall in love with you again, because finally you were speaking on your own terms. You had to build your own show. Yes. To finally not be misrepresented. Yep. I've come to the understanding that with things that I've gone through and the way I've raised my kids, the way I've decided to have my marriage, I look at my life, I go, I get it.

I can see why that wouldn't be good for you.

But it's like you get to a place where you are so comfortable with yourself, it's like it's all right. You don't have to like me. It's OK. I remember that whole Anne Hathaway thing, the way the old generation, like, ridiculed this woman for just rehearsing an Oscar speech.

Who wouldn't rehearse Oscar speech the way she got TROL. I mean, she was one of the dumbest cases of council culture where it's just like they canceled half the seeming pre rehearsals. I cannot bear an organized woman. We cannot bear a premeditated woman, a confident woman. We cannot back a woman who has a plan. There's nothing more dangerous to society. And so women the same like always grateful, always surprised.

We must always seem like lost little girls. Yeah. We have to make this face on Instagram because we need to make sure that men understand that we don't know where we are or what's going on. And so they must come and save us.

This was a great conversation and I have to say that we like legendary. Yes, yes, yes. I love that so very much.

I'm so inspired by you. This show, what you've done with it, this feels like being invited on Oprah in the nineties. Oh, wow.

You know what I mean? You really talk about real that I've never heard people talk about on TV before. You're changing the conversation for women and I see the impact that you're having in real time. But I took it really seriously, like being invited on the show, because there are people who genuinely say about me every day that she is the worst person on the Internet and I'm like, the worst really don't know. Me, though, was like, give me top ten.

Brown woman with passion is always going to get the heat.

Not always. That's what we're here to do, is it ends it ends with you and your.

To join the red table, talk family and become a part of the conversation, follow us at Facebook dot com slash red tabletop. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Tablecloth podcast produced by Facebook Watch Westbrooke Audio and I Heart Radio tonight.

It's the biggest night of the year for podcast fans or twenty twenty one. I heard radio podcast awards. These are really some of the best and brightest and smartest and most compelling minds in the country. Celebrate the podcasts we've leaned on for laughs, headlines, stories to get our adrenaline pumping and voices to comfort us. It was a huge honor. Thank you to my listeners because without them this wouldn't have. Don't miss our twenty twenty one IHA radio podcast awards, watch on Ijaw radios, YouTube and Facebook and listen on our radio show tonight at 9:00 p.m..

To some, he Ziggy Stardust, to others the thin white dude or Major Tom, but who is David Bowie really? To answer that will have to go off the record, off the record as a new music biography podcast.

Every season profiles one legendary artist. To start, we'll explore the faces of David Bowie. Each episode tells the story of one of his iconic personas. Together, they form an intimate portrait of a complex cultural giant.

Listen and follow off the record on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows.