Today on the TMZ podcast.

Hello and welcome to the TMZ podcast. I'm Charlie Cotton, and today I'm joined by Nikki Hendry.

Yes.

Hi.

Hi, Nikki. Hi, how are you doing today?

I'm doing very well. Thanks for coming back to the studio.

Thank you. We are almost to that four day weekend. Four day weekend. Four day weekend. I know today's Thursday, we got one more day and then we are off for four days.

Oh, my God. Cannot wait. We got some interesting stories for you today, Nikki.

Yeah, I actually really like the first one we're going to talk about.

We're going to talk about Vanna White. She wants half of what Pat Sajak was making.

Pay disparity at its finest right there.

That's right. We're also going to talk about Moderna and the serious bacteria infection she had where she was in the ICU and it didn't look good.

For a while. That was really scary. I was getting text yesterday about people saying, Did they kill Moderna? And I'm like, No, she's not dead yet.

Yeah, she's expected to make a full recovery, but it was dicey. And finally, we're going to talk about how Kim wants the old Kanye back. She wants the man she.

Loved back. I feel like we all do.

But we'll.

Get to that.

We'll get to that. On the top, Vanna White, the lady who turns the letters on, or she touches the letters these days with modern technology, on Wheel of Fortune. Now that Pat Sajak is out and Ryan Seacrest is coming in, Vanna says, Look, I want to renegotiate, too. I haven't been able to renegotiate for, what is it, 18 years?

Eighteen years she has been paid the same, three million dollars. And at the time that the Wheel of Fortune show was coming up and in its prime and things like that, of course, three million dollars was probably a lot.

Back then. I mean, it's a lot right now, too.

Compared to Pat Sajak, who's making 18 million? Fifteen. Fifteen million? No, no, no, honey. No, sir, no, how? When they enter the show, it is announced as both of them are the stars of the show. It does not like, Here's our host and here's your co host. Here's your host and here's your model. Here's your host and here's the girl who turns the letters.

No. Okay, but who does more work?

I want to say she does. What if she touches the wrong letter?

That could be bad.

I love Pat Sajak and I love Van Halen. I love the show. My husband watches it every single night. But we do the little puzzles. It's like our little bonding time. Kind of sad. Okay, go on. Shut up.

I didn't know that about you.

That's actually interesting. Fun fact. But honestly, Pat, you don't do much, sir. Not going to lie.

Well, I mean, Ryan Seacrest is coming in. Reportedly, he's going to make $28 million a year a season. And a season is basically just a few months a year of filming, and then they just play it for the rest.

Of the year. So no offense to Ryan Seacrest, he has his own amazing accomplishments that he's done. But Vanna White is Wheel of Fortune. They can't bring in another model because then you're going to lose the continuity of the show. I don't understand.

Do we really care about continuity?

You have loyal people like me who watch the show, I want to see my girl turn in the letters. I don't want to see some young hot thing turn in the letters. I want my girl, Vanna.

I wouldn't say girl either. She's older now. I think what they're going to do is replace her with a girl, probably.

I don't think so. I don't think so.

Okay, so it's interesting. You're a loyal Wheel of Fortune.

I love.

It so much. You're like the number one fan. Okay, so are you going to boycott Wheel of Fortune if they replace Vanna with, say, Pat Sajak's daughter, Maggie, who's done it in the past.

I don't know if I'm going to boycott it. I think I'd still watch it, but I'll probably talking crap the whole time. Now, let me put it in perspective for you to understand, okay? You're the hot cameraman at LAX, right? Let's say you're getting paid your salary and they hire some hot young guy to come above you and they actually paying him more. You going to be okay with that when you've been here for almost 10 years? Is he.

Better than me? Can he do the job as well or better.

Than me? I'm not sure. We haven't seen either of the people that you're saying may replace her do the job. So I don't know if that's not valid right now. It's just strictly on principle. You haven't gotten a raise in X amount of time and someone comes in and now their salary is higher because they're coming in from the outside.

You are really on one of the story.

Making you think because you'd be pissed. Look at her. Our girl.

Is pissed. Maybe you've convinced me. I was really not wanting to be convinced. She's been there for over 40 years. She says, basically, I want about seven and a half million dollars to stay. Otherwise, I'm out of here. And that's.

Not asking for much. What does that equate to then? Seven and three... Is it 10? 10 million? That's still less than what Pat was making.

She just wants half of what Pat was making.

And that's okay.

I.

Feel.

Like that's valid. But as you said, you would keep watching whether they pay her that or not. So maybe they'll get rid of her, get someone else, pay them two or three million dollars. You'll still watch.

I just feel like when you have a show is like Wheel of Fortune. I mean, look at Je property. I don't know the ratings of Je property, but is it as good now that Alex Trebeck is no longer the host because unfortunately, he passed away. You have two different hosts now. You can't really get... What am I only going to watch, you know, Je property on two days out of the week because Mayan Bialik is doing it on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

You know what I mean? You barely even know who the host of the Deputy is. It's not Ryan Seacrest. They've hired Ryan Seacrest now for Wheel of Fortune. We spent the letter lady money on Ryan, too.

Well, that's the thing, too. That's why I think she's going so hard for this, too, is because not only is it a male host coming in again. You have Ryan Seacrest, who, like I said, already has his accomplishments. He deserves the money that he's getting. I don't know about 28 million. I don't know what that looks like. But I'm just saying she has not gotten a raise in 18 years. She's put in the work. She is a vet on that show. And if they want to keep her, they're going to need to at least meet her halfway. And that's all she's asking for.

Well, Pat is enjoying the good life while Vanna is fighting for more equal pay. He's in Hawaii. We got video of him in Hawaii at an air supply, it's an old band, a concert of theirs, with his daughter, Maggie. And as I said, maybe he's just siding with Maggie. He thinks that maybe his daughter, who has stood in for Vanna in the past, could do it on a more permanent basis and for a lot.

Less money. And I will say that it's not a far stretch to throw her name into the pot for something involving the show, because at the end of every show, she's in the promo that they do for whatever Wheel of Fortune.

Continuity. You can't throw that back in my face. She s young, she just started. Okay.

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On to our next story. Quite a scary few days for Madona. On Saturday, reportedly, she was found unrepeated responsive. But on Saturday, she went into the ICU for a serious bacteria infection. And reportedly, her team was having almost crisis meetings on Zoom to decide, Is she going to make it ? Is she not going to make it? Well, she is going to make it. She's expected to make a full recovery. But the world tour that she had planned to do starting in July is on hold now. Clearly, her kids rushed to her side when this happened. Clearly, they were very, very worried. We don't know exactly what the infection was, but this could have been bad.

Yeah. I feel like, obviously, we don't know the bacterial infection, how she developed it. All we know is that she's out of the ICU right now. She's recovering. She is expected to make a full recovery. But in those early stages of something like this happening, obviously, everyone, your family and things like that, we just saw with Jamie Fox, something very seriously happened with him. And there was no questions asked. Everyone dropped what they're doing to run to their side. So I feel like when we see that, we almost jump to conclusions. Everyone like I said, I was getting text like, Oh, my gosh. Our headline said she was hospitalized. And they're like, Oh, my gosh. Is she going to die? Is she dying? Obviously, everyone immediately goes to that. But all we know is that she is expected to make a full recovery, which is amazing. And then the postpartum, it happens for artists. There's so things that happen. We were just talking about this isn't the same, but canceling of tour because of weather. What's that guy's name from?

Nile.

Was.

It Nile? Was it Nile? Was it Lewis?

Lewis. Louis Tomlinson. Louis Tomlinson. Louis Tomlinson. Thank you. I'm blanking. But Louis Tomlinson had that huge rain, the hailstorm. People were injured there. Postponements happen. And I feel like us as people who buy tickets to people's concerts, we have to understand they're still human. They still have crap that's going on behind the scenes. We can't just expect them to be like, get on the stage because I paid $300 for these, or meet and greet and things like that. It's so expensive now.

I think it'll be interesting to learn more about whatever she was suffering through because her world tour isn't supposed to start for another two weeks. So I would have thought you could hopefully recover and you'd be resting up for that whole time. But clearly it was serious enough that they're like, We need to reassess. We need to stop everything going on. We need to reassess. I mean, she's 64, but she's still quite young.

Yes, she is. I do feel like it depends on where the bacterial infection is, right? What if it's in her throat? What if she can't sing anymore? What if it's somewhere in her leg where she now has to do rehab to get physical therapy or something to get that motion, maybe range of motion, maybe did something to the muscles. Who knows? We don't know. Maybe she has to do something additional to get her back to the state of being able to do a world tour. World tour does not stop. And that's exhausting. Very exhausting. She's traveling the whole time on stage for X amount of hours practicing in between.

Right. Her kids actually like, Lotus was in Paris at some fashion thing, or Vans shoes. She rushed to her side. I was reading Rocko, her son, you'll never guess where he was when he rushed to her side.

Oh, where was he?

He was doing a motorbike ride through Transylvania. What? Who knew that was a.

Real place? Yeah, I always thought that was a Disney movie or something, right?

Yeah. He was doing a motorbike ride through Transylvania. But her kids rushed to her side. And it's great, though. It's great to be back. She'll be fine. But when I was scrolling through my feed yesterday, I was seeing thoughts and prayers and.

A picture of Medanah.

And I was scary. Is she done? Because she's one of the biggest icons ever. So clearly...

I'm pretty sure the story is going to develop more as I know our producers on the News desk are working on figuring out all the details for this. So I do feel like, stay tuned because I'm sure we're going to have some more bombshell of details that are going to come out.

About that. That's right. Our News desk needs to get on it.

We need more details. Did you get anyone at LAX today or yesterday? What was your biggest clip this week? Don't attack our News desk, Charlie Cotton.

I'm just focusing on the podcast right now. The clips.

Will come. I love how you're diverting.

You.

Just do the left turn.

Wow. Okay, onto our final story. Kim Kardashian wants the old Kanye back. There was a new episode of The Kardashans last night, which we'll discuss. But in the trailer for next week, the, just come back and watch us again, the climax, Kim is saying to Chloe that she wants the old Kanye back. Actually, we got a clip from it here. We'll play the clip, but you hear it in her own words.

You okay? Not okay. It's so different than the person that I married. I just can't. That's who I loved and that's who I remember. I'll do anything to get.

That person back. Okay, what do you make of that line, I'll get anything to get that person back?

Yeah, I'd do anything to get that person back. Does she.

Still hold of any romantic or does she hold a flame for.

Kanye at all? So I think we have to put this into perspective for our listeners, too. I mean, we know a lot about how things are filmed in Hollywood. I don't know if people know this has already been filmed back when she was going through the thick of it.

So they're already... This is when all of his anti semitic rants. I mean, he's still a bit weird and he's still on the edge. But he was saying the most vile stuff about Jewish people. And he was just like, he won anti semitic of the year, put in a perspective.

Yeah, it was brutal. But I think as a wife and a mother, she was trying to hold on to her relationship with Kanye. So even though he's doing all of these things, she was trying to get him help. I mean, there was all those things about his outburst and things like that with his bipolarness and all of the things that they were talking about on the show. And the old Kanye was level headed. He was a genius, a lyrical genius, a fashion genius, all of the things. And now he's just being known for something else. And for her, that's hard because she has not only is she a wife of him, you're supposed to stand by your man, right? It's hard for her to do that when she also is the mother of the kids that they share together. So she doesn't want to shed deep talk crap, you know what I mean? So she was able to break down in front of her sister. And I do feel like for her, her brand, too, can suffer. Her as herself is suffering with dealing with that. But then there's all of these other layers to it.

So I feel like right when she was in the thick of it, I feel like.

That's when you had a bit of that breakdown because they married, was they married or got together in 2014?

They married back in 2014.

So she's basically saying, and Chloe's saying, he isn't the same guy you married, which I think is true. And people change. And I think this happens to a lot of marriages, maybe not like a huge anti semi.

Exactly. Not to this magnitude.

Not to this magnitude, but people change and Kanye changed. And she wants that old 2014 Kanye back either romantically or maybe just to be as a good co parent. But having said that, how do you go back from all of the horrible, let's go death con, whatever on June. And he just said the most awful stuff. I don't know if we can ever get that Kanye back or if he.

Wants to come back. No. And I think for her, what you were saying, they have kids that they share. It's hard when you have little kids who are learning from your examples. And if your ex husband now, but her husband at the time, their dad is saying all of this stuff, are they now going to be doing the same thing and saying the same things that he's saying? And even now, if she's trying to shield them really a lot, they're still the internet. North is on TikTok. And her kids are getting older. They're getting smarter. So I feel like she had a lot on her shoulders to try. I know that that family has tried to be to bring him back down to reality.

Because those kids obviously just love their dad and look up to their dad. They do. And he's like, as dads and moms are, they're like superheroes to their kids. So it must be scary for her that Kanye is potentially being such a negative influence. And yeah, hopefully he can mellow down a bunch and just cool it on the anti semitic.

Stuff, bro. Well, I will say that ever since he's been with B ianka sensory, we have not seen him have any of those outbursts, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's when he's out. Now, that's a different story, and we can get into that later. But he does still have those. But if someone doesn't want to be filmed, then why are we still filming them? Do you know what I mean? He's made it apparent and made it clear. Not TMZ.

Tmz don't film when they say put the camera down.

We put the camera down. We are very respectful. I will give us that. But there are some other camera guys in the industry. I work in the photo and video department. They don't. They just keep going, going, going, going, going, going. So that's a different story than this. But I feel like Bianca sensory has been maybe something is different than what Kim could give him that Bianca is giving him.

Right. Well, I hope that they're happy and she can tame him a bit. What do you think? Did you see the part of the episode where Kim was... She brought her whole glass grammar team to the DMV to take the driver's license photo.

Good for her. You like that? You know what? Those people at the DMV, they hold no chill. If you blink, they're like, Sorry, can't redo it. If you smile, can't redo it. Or if you have a bad hair, you got to fly away a wisp. Now I'm stuck with that for however long I have to get my license renewed.

But did they let her retake? I don't think the DMV people should let her retake. You get one try. Everybody gets one try.

If Kim Kardashian said, Hey, can you take a picture of me? And you screwed it up. And then she asked again, Would you do it? No. Yes, you would. No, you would. You're not telling Kim Kardashian, No, you can't have this. I can't do it again.

I'm not going to change my policy just because it's.

Kim Kardashian. You would. You change your policy daily when you go out with your camera for different celebrities.

Maybe.

But I'm three for three today, Charlie.

But then I want more try. Nikki, you should see my driver's license. My driver's license is absolutely terrible. Here we go. There it is. Why didn't I get more than one try?

Yeah, your eyes are closed. Yeah. They clearly didn't know you were Charlie Cotton from TMZ. That would have held weight.

If only I hosted the podcast.

Back then. Yeah, shoot. I mean, dang, we really messed up. We're a few years behind.

Right. All right, Nikki, thank you very much for joining me. Have a great day. Bye. See you guys.