A Weird Thing Happened With Dr. Phil

And it involves #tradwives

Quick note to say that we are VERY close to my personal pre-order goal for Sicilian Inheritance for a couple months out from pub but we aren’t there yet! If you haven’t ordered yet what are you waiting for?! You’ll get the substack free forever if you email me or Instagram DM me your receipt. We won’t be offering it much longer! Plus the book is a delight. Three people including my mom told me today that it got them out of their reading slump.

So a weird thing happened this week that I have been dying to tell a group of people over drinks but I’m still kind of dry and everyone in my house got sick again so I haven’t gone anywhere because I smell like baby puke.

I figured I might as well write about it!

Awhile ago a producer from the Dr. Phil show reached out to me to be an expert on the show to talk about TradWives. I was like sure. I don’t love Dr. Phil, but I’m a massive publicity monster for my podcast Under the Influence and for The Sicilian Inheritance (grab it early and often my friends…early and often). So we chatted about my take on them (they’re generally dangerous for culture, for America and for women) and they said they would get back to me. I get these calls all the time and half the time I never hear anything.

And then a few months later I get the call to come to Dallas to be the #tradwife expert. There was some back and forth about the dates and finally landed on today. I couldn’t be there in person because I’m interviewing Sadeqa Johnson about The House of Eve tonight in Harrisburg at Midtown Scholar (AN AMAZING INDIE THAT I ADORE) and I don’t bail on other authors but Dr. Phil’s people assured me that we could do it on Zoom. I just had to have a prep call with a producer.

They wanted to do the call over the weekend but I told them I didn’t have childcare. They didn’t care. Not surprised. So I said, fine we can do it Saturday morning. But on Friday night I got a pre, prep call from a young producer. I want to preface what happens next with the fact that I have been on television many, many times as a talking head about subjects ranging from celebrity pornos to Hilary Clinton’s policy.

I was eight months pregnant on the Today Show talking about How to Be Married.

I’ve even done daytime TV before. Here I am on Bethenny! Look at those gams.

I got to talk to Deborah Roberts about We Are Not Like Them (and she is soooooooooo pretty and brilliant in person). None of this is braggy….I’m just sayin I have been around the block!

AND THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.

First they started asking me questions about my height and my weight and my clothing size. I asked why and it was in case I got to the studio and they didn’t like my outfit. They wanted to have something else on hand to change me in. Again, this has never ever happened. I told them I was doing it remotely but they still wanted to know.

Then they asked about visible tattoos and piercings. Fine. Whatever.

And then they wanted to know about the condition of my teeth. Do I have all of them?

It gets weirder!

Then my eyesight. Do I have glasses. No. But what about a lazy eye? Do I have one or potentially two lazy eyes?

At this point I thought I was being punked or maybe my identity was being stolen by a Nigerian Prince who needed to know these answers to create an AI me. I texted the original producer to ask WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I DID HAVE A LAZY EYE.

She did not write back.

That was mostly it. I was on my way to Costco with Nick for a hot Friday night date and he was very confused the entire time, especially when they asked about mouth jewelry.

So the next morning I get a call from another producer.

And it gets weirder!!!!