Today on the TMZ podcast.

Hello and welcome to the TMZ podcast. I'm Charlie Cotton.

Derek.

How are you? I'm very well. Welcome back.

July fifth. It's not your holiday. Don't talk about the fourth of July. Don't ask me about the fourth of July. I got it off. You are a traveler here. You are a visitor. But this is not your holiday, sir. Now go on.

That's Xenophobic. That's almost a hate crime recorded on a podcast.

It's live right there for everyone to see. My deep, deep, contempt and hatred of you. Anyway, go on. Anyway. Love you, Charlie. Let's go. You've been here for the fourth now for over a decade. You're honorary. You're probably stars in a stripe.

Bathing suit. American now.

American as apple pie right there.

All right. We're going to do some fun stories today. We're going to talk about powder found at the White House.

Exciting.

White House. The White Powder. Crazy story. We're going to talk about Threads, a new app launching. Mark Zuckerberg's new Twitter rival is launching tomorrow.

I got a lot of thoughts there. Next.

But off the top, we're going to talk about Kyle Richards and Mauricio. Are they divorced? Are they not divorced? Let me.

Just say these are three bangers because we've had a long break, a long holiday weekend, so we've really cherry picked the very best stories. These are three big stories.

These are massive stories and I want you to sink your teeth into.

Them, Derek. So the big news was an announcement by People magazine that Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umanosky were getting divorced. Now, this has long been a topic of speculation amongst Real Housewives and Beverly Hills fans. He obviously has his own show now on Netflix selling Beverly Hills. People have talked about this because their relationship is very funny. Now, people said they're divorced. Then quickly, Kyle released a statement, said, Look, we've had a very rough year, but we are not divorced. We've been married 27 years. They're still under the same roof. They want their privacy statement.

So she denied the report while confirming that there is smoke, that there is trouble in... I don't even know if it's paradise, but.

There is trouble. But she specifically said no wrongdoing on anyone's part. And the reason she said that is because the rumors that have swirled forever on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is that Mauricio, a little bit of a playboy, he's very flirtatious. He's a very good looking guy. He's affable. He sells real estate, so he's very social in all settings. And there were always rumors that he had some valiances or that he flirted a lot and was a man about town.

But isn't the current rumor about Kyle stepping out on the relationship with another woman?

Isn't this the wildest? That's the wildest twist. There's rumors also that she stepped out, like you said, with a woman. So you have these two people. And look.

With a country star named Morgan Wade. Yes.

I don't know anything about.

Morgan Wade. Do you? I didn't before now, but now I know there's enough. I thought when I first read the story, they were talking about Morgan Wallen. But they're talking.

About Morgan... I don't think she's pulling.

Morgan Wallen right now. Morgan Wade, the country star, all tattered up pretty. And they've been linked together. They've been seen together. They're friends. But fans have speculated for a little while that potentially there's something romantic going on there.

Let's take a step back. So they've been married 27 years. They got three kids of their own. Mauricio also, I think, adopted Kyle's first child with her first husband.

You.

Know a lot about this. I know this family very well. Their youngest is Portia. And Portia used to be a little kid on Real Households of Beverly Hills. She's 15 years old now. So they've been together married 27 years. That's a lifetime, man. How long have you been married?

You'll.

Have to ask me later. I know. Jeez, you're a relatively newlywed. You should know your exact number of years.

You're married. We were married 2018.

2018. I was married 2011. So I'm way ahead of you. And it's a marathon, as I'm sure you can attest. And kids add to the complication. They've got three of them. I don't care how much money you have. They have plenty of wealth. They're fine. They're very comfortable. But over time, you get restless sometimes. And Mauricio is a social guy, and Kyle has her interest, and they're both big and famous. So this never surprised me. Actually, I was waiting for this shoe to drop. Now, I believe her that they're working on it. I'm not sure it's going to patch up very well.

But for people to release that exclusive bombshell report, they must have had a source who... I just know this because we work in a news organization, too. And for Harvey or anyone else on the news desk to press post on any story, especially if it's an exclusive, then you need to be damn sure of what you're reporting.

Look, here's a little inside baseball about how our corner of the media works. People's a reputable source. People is not a rag. It's not a tabloid you get in a grocery store that says, Hey, bat boy, and shows weird pictures. People's in our corner is a reputable source.

It's bad for business for them if they post stories that end up not being true because Kyle might be one of the stories. Maybe there's another story next week, and then people lose faith that the news organization publishes reliable information.

Right. Now, they had confidence, though. They're a news organization for many, many years. Whether you consider people news, they're a news source. They felt comfortable enough to publish. Then Kyle quickly comes out. And when she denies the story, it doesn't mean necessarily the story is untrue. It just means she's denying it. That's how news works.

She said it was untrue, though. She said the words untrue.

She can say it's untrue.

But is she lying then?

She can be lying. She can be. Sure. Right. Look, at some point, this lie, someone is lying. Someone gave people a story that said these two are divorced and they must have been pretty comfortable. Typically, when we do a divorce story, we say, Really? Well, divorce is a filing. I mean, that's a legal proceeding. We'll have our court staff go pull these documents. There's a divorce petition. Even if you file it under a seal, you can often see the two names of the parties. So you know someone's divorced. So something is going to give. If there's a divorce, people may have seen some documents drawn up but not filed. Who knows? I don't know. I don't work for people, but they felt comfortable enough to say, I'm going with this. She has now come out and said it's untrue. Maybe these documents were prepared but never filed. There's a whole host of reasons. But if it is true, her denial will mean nothing if you can go to court and file and find humansky.

Richard's divorce. I honestly think this is the Vanderpump Rules effect.

This is just purely to drum up.

I don't know if people are in on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Kyle and Mauricio, but more Kyle, decides, okay, we need a storyline now. People have been speculating about this. Let's do the I date a woman storyline now. Would you be surprised?

It's Andy Cohen, isn't it? I would be surprised in this instance just because Mauricio is huge. The agency is one of the biggest real estate companies in the world. One of the biggest, certainly in California.

But divorce hasn't got anything to do with the ability to sell houses.

Well, reputationally, he could take a hit if he's seen as a bad guy in a marriage. It would hurt your ability to sell houses. Selling houses is all about relationships, right? It's about having the inventory, yes, and making the sale. But it's also about shaking hands, meeting lots of people. His fame and his reputation could take a hit if you were seen as a CAD of some sort. So I don't know that they would do it because they've got plenty of money. He makes a ton of money. She's from Hollywood royalty. In some ways, she's related to.

Paris Hilton. Something is harder to make.

Fame. Yeah.

You're right. Relevance. And gain attention. You can have all the money in the world. You can sell lots of houses, but the attention is a currency. And it's obviously what both of these guys want. They're both on their own reality shows.

Look at Jeff Bezos. No one has more money than him, but what he wants is attention. Absolutely. He gets the arm candy. They display themselves on the yacht and so forth. You're right. It's all.

About attention. And here we are talking about it on the TMZ podcast.

Please. Where do you fall on this? So you think this is going to patch up? They're going to do a lot of... On the fourth of July, there were pictures they posted looking like a very happy family. So I think you'll see a lot of this to quell these rumors. But I don't know when she indicates in her statement, we've had a very rough year that things are a little hunky dory now.

I'm going to just file this under don't really care.

Yeah.

Okay, very well. And I know we started the podcast with it. You led with it. But I mean, I guess we'll wait and see. I'm not going to be jumping in it. I don't really care.

I'll file it under I care a lot so that we have a difference of opinion just.

Because we have different filing systems.

They're OGs. She is one of the early people of the Housewives franchise. You got Nene, she's on the Mount Rushmore.

Kyle's up there. Okay, I'm good now.

All.

Right, move on. Before we move on, this episode is sponsored by Article. Article is an amazing furniture business. I actually got a few items from them. I got a dresser that we change our little toddler on. It's fantastic. It's huge. So much room for all her clothes and her nappies and things, her diapers. We also got two moon floor lamps that sit either side of our couch. They are really good mood lighting in our living room. I really love these guys. They're really fast. And it came, honestly, we ordered it and it arrived within two or three days. It was crazy fast. And the people that I dealt with at the company were awesome in trying to coordinate the delivery and find me things that I'll like and love for many years to come. So I really appreciate their help on that. So Article is offering our listeners 50 bucks off their first purchase of $100 or more. So that's like half price. And if you want to claim your offer, just go to article. Com tmz and the discount will automatically be applied when you check out. So that's article. Com tmz for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

The cameras stopped rolling on Vanderpump Rules, and that's when it all got real. I'm Jax Taylor.

And I'm Brittany Cartwright.

And we are talking about everything on our podcast, When Reality Hits.

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A white powdery substance was found in the West Wing, where President Biden works. And the fire department, the Washington... What do you call DC fire department, they tested it and said, Look, this is cocaine. This is coke.

So apparently they found it in a little dime sized bag in an area where people keep their cell phones. There's been additional reporting. This is a big story because finding a little Coke guy in the White House is big news. And it's particularly catnip right now. Why? Do you know why?

I do. Thank you for testing my intelligence. And I hope I'm right. Hunter Biden.

It's all got to do with Hunter. People say there's cocaine in the White House. The son of the President is a ne'er do well drug addict, sleeps around.

There's a lot of those, though.

There are a lot of those. And there have been throughout the history of the White House. But this particular story at this particular political moment where we have such a divided country and everyone is looking for pot shots at the other party to find a little dine bag of Coke, man. People loved it. People ate.

It up. So they haven't said, or they don't know whose Coke they're trying. Do they need to return it now?

Yeah. I don't know. It is someone's illegal property, I suppose. But you're right. Someone left the White House and.

They were just... Oh, man. It was going to be a great fourth of.

July and now look, oh no. My little treat. So yeah, typically you find powder at the White House House, the story is going to be this is an act of terrorism. This could be rice in. You remember all the hysteria right after 911 when people were sending packages filled with powder and there would be a white powder and they would say, What is it? And they would have to test it. And it could have been a neurotoxin. No, no, no, no. This is just.

Pure cocaine. Active terranote.

Active euphoria. This is someone brought their Coke. I can't fathom that someone felt comfortable enough to bring it to work and put it in the locker. Was like, Hey, here goes my cell phone and let me put my little dime in there.

Imagine them getting home and tapping their pockets or going through their wallet. Oh, no.

Did I leave it or am I going to.

Just do shrooms? It's hilarious. Look, Biden wasn't there.

There's going to be an investigation. You can imagine the Republicans are going to sink their teeth into this. They want to say, This is a corrupt administration.

Are we going to find out whose powder it is?

I think now that I've... The most recent story I read about it was that where it was found was an area that employees traffic... Look, I don't think it's Joe Biden's. I don't think Joe Biden's blowing the line. He's not at an age where cocaine is his drug.

Yeah, he's hot.

It can't hold up to him. But in the executive side, look, they work very long hours. I had friends who I went to law school with and college with who worked in the West Wing. It's a high pressure job. You're running the country and you're in the executive branch. You work all hours in the night, it's possible someone won a little edge. And cocaine is a drug like coffee. It's a stimulant. My sense is they will be able to determine roughly who it is if it's in this area where employees keep their stuff. You can imagine a knocker that belongs to someone. If someone put their sunglasses and their phone, you open up the phone, it's got a picture of your favorite employee in his little bag on there. You're going to have at least an investigation roll out that says, Hey, saw this next to your phone. Do you? Is this yours? There's going to be.

Some of that. And I dare say, look, if they found a white substance here at TMZ, then you can pretty quickly narrow down who it is and who it isn't. There's a pool of people. They found it on the ground. They must know who's suspicious or who's likely to do this stuff.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of pressure to conduct an investigation, right? You're going to have the Ted Cruz's of this world say, oh, this is... Investigation. We need an investigation to get to the bottom of this. Special counsel. This is what sometimes Republicans do the best, right? I mean, the whole Bill Clinton thing was he got a little oral in the office and they impeached him on it. You think they're going to just ignore the baggie of cocaine? I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay. We'll have to see where this goes. It's fascinating to me just because a bag of cocaine, it's a recreational drug. It's much more common now than when I was a kid. Cocaine was a very hardcore strange drug you saw in movies. I think when you're a little bit younger, it's more common to see it around. Is that right?

You're asking the right person and yes.

I've seen it. I find it very, very scary. But anyway, different generations.

On to our final story of the day. Threads is launching tomorrow, which is Mark Zuckerberg's rival to Twitter. It looks pretty good. It looks like Twitter, but you know...

Oh, its logo is the little @ sign, but it looks like a string.

I quite like.

That logo. I was going to question you. So I think of Facebook as having a real problem. Meta is the big name of the company. They tried to go into virtual reality. They're like sliding back and stepping back from that venture and getting back into their core competency, which is social media. So it makes sense they would launch something like threads. But Facebook has a problem of coolness. Facebook is something like your aunt is on or your mom is on, but it's not considered the cool app anymore. It's got a huge user base. So he's trying to feel a little bit hip and put threads on there. I found it a little tryhard. I find Mark Zuckerberg dorky. And for him to say, Hey, man, threads, like a vernacular for clothes and have a little squiggly line, it seems like he's trying very hard to be cool.

My nickname used to be threads. My last name is Cotton. People used to call me Threadsie.

You could be the spokesman for threads, man. I could. I think it would raise their cool. I read it as, and I'm curious that you thought it looked cool. Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg can release something that's cool? Or do you think Elon Musk has cool cornered?

Wow. That was a word salad.

Yeah, it's a lot.

I don't think Elon Musk is cool. I don't like Elon Musk. In fact, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So I feel like Mark Zuckerberg is my friend.

Oh, interesting. So you're.

Rooting for him in the case batch? I'm rooting for him to knock out Elon cold. And I'm also rooting for threads. Actually, more than rooting for Mark Zuckerberg, I'm rooting for the other Twitter rival, Jack Dorsey, who originally founded Twitter. He's got his own Twitter now called Blue Sky. I'm rooting for that. There's so many horses in this race now. And the reason I'm rooting for Blue Sky is, though, that it's quite decentralized and the company won't take all the user's data. That's what Meta is going to do.

Meta is definitely.

Going to farm that data. When you sign up to use threads or even Twitter to an extent, they take and use all your data about who you are, what you like, where you live, all.

That stuff. To make the user experience better was what they.

Would say. So they would say. But also they can do whatever they want with your data. Whereas Blue Sky is going to be more like, you own the data, you own your own. And so I'm all rooting for that.

But you're in the tinfoil hat. You don't want anyone to have your data. They have all your data anyway. Every time you turn on your phone, they know exactly.

Where you are. I know. I know. But I like the idea of you not trying to make money out of it. I know you are anyway, but I just like the idea of trying to put a step into some hurdles in the way.

This is what I hate, though. You get all these free apps that are beyond your wildest imagination. Should they be able to make a buck? They're pretty cool to use. No one's making you use Twitter or threads, but you don't want them to be able to monetize the ability to use these massive apps that give you.

Access to all corners of the Earth. You're talking about Elon Musk and subscription based content and paying for these apps. You should be able to pay for them rather than be advertised too. And that's basically how they pay for it.

Sure. Look, if you don't want them to farm your data to monetize, then pay for it. Then pay for it and they'll be able to make money. But these companies are there for profit. They're public companies. They have shareholders and Meta has shareholders and Twitter is privately held now. And so I think what's interesting about Twitter and what it's doing is you've got this wacky guy who goes on Joe Rogen and he's odd and he's running it like a chief, like a king. He just beta tests weird things all the time, whatever he's thinking. And you're right. And things fail quickly. He's of the old mindset of Silicon Valley that is like, move fast, break things quickly. If it doesn't work, beta test it, move off, A B test. What works? He wants to see quickly and try it because he's got this huge pool of people who use it. Meta is a much more stable, old school company. So they're going to run it. They tweeted something that they're going to run it Samely, which is a pot shot at Elon Musk and the way he does things. And Elon said, Oh, thank goodness, it's run Samely.

So he's positioned himself as, Yeah, I try a lot of things and I'm cooler than you. Go ahead and run it Sainly. We don't want.

Sane platforms for Twitter. I'm just rooting for no one besides the downfall of Elon. And he's just so ego and I just don't like him. I agree with that. If things he does fail, then it gives me a sadistic joy.

You like when those rockets just blow up. When he tries to land them and it's.

Just boom. And obviously, this is the first fight that they're going to have. This threads versus Twitter is the first fight before potentially stepping in the ring together. Do you think if me versus you in a fight, a cotton versus koffman?

We've had a.

Battle before.

And you won.

Roll.

The tape. We're not going to roll any tape. We had a foot race and you run like a baby gazelle. You have stride length. I have raw speed, powerful.

Thigh, and I.

Couldn't make up the stagger.

Your acceleration was rubbish, bro.

I didn't.

Have any acceleration. If me and you bare knuckle cage fight.

Who do you think is... I would tie you into a pretzel. I've got so much mass on you. Once I get on top of you, you're smothered, baby. Your lungs ain't working.

I got mongrel in me, though. I got like a dragonfly.

You're a little spider monkey. I could see you pulling hair, but I don't have.

Enough hair to pull, baby. I'm crazy, though. I'm like.

We're crazy. I know. You're a biter. I get up with bite marks and things.

You think you'd take me or.

You think I'd... I think I would tie you up. I think I could actually tie your limbs into a knot. I think you are gelatinous enough and without any real structure to your body that I could just tie you off. Hog tie you with your own limbs.

If Elon versus Mark happens, the social media fight, Cotton versus Kauffman has to happen. If that happens, this happens.

In the parking lot in the octagon.

Done. All right. Well, thank you very much for joining me, mate. I appreciate you.

All right.

See you guys. See you later. Bye.