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Barcelona Secrets
60 Plays2 years ago
When journalist Benita Alexander discovers that her fiance, world famous surgeon Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, is a pathological liar, she goes on an investigative mission to unravel his dark secrets and expose the truth about his dangerous, experimental surgeries.
Berraca is a Colombian slang term for a resilient, badass woman who has survived something difficult yet still stands strong.
In Episode 1, "BARCELONA SECRETS," Benita chats with two of her closest friends as she reveals what happened when they went on a secret, unplanned visit to her fiance's home in Barcelona.
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Transcript
Introduction: Benita and the Baracas
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Benita and the Baracas podcast. Baraca is Colombian slang for a resilient woman who's been through something difficult, but still stands strong. A Baraca is basically a badass.
Benita's Love Story with a Con Man
00:00:28
Speaker
And after what I've been through, I am all about supporting badass women. If you don't already know my crazy story, it's a love story. Gone horribly wrong.
00:00:42
Speaker
I was engaged to this guy, a famous surgeon and scientist who turned out to be a pathological con man. The story is insane and it's been told all over the world. It's been on ABC. I'm whoopi Goldberg and this is the con.
00:01:07
Speaker
the Dr. Oz show, the Dr. Death podcast, and I even made a film about it called, He Lied About Everything.
00:01:16
Speaker
Now, I want a mission to let women know you do not need to be shamed into silence. No matter how smart or successful you are, anyone can get duped. These con artists really are that good. It's embarrassing. It was embarrassing for me to admit I got conned. But if we want to stop these guys and empower ourselves, we have to talk about this.
00:01:41
Speaker
I'll be chatting with other survivors and my dearest friends as we reveal new details about my own nightmare. So we're going to laugh, we're going to cry, and sometimes we'll sip a drink. To toast the fact that we are all bad-ass Veracas.
The Dark Joke Behind the Podcast Title
00:02:01
Speaker
This podcast contains adult language and content and may not be suitable for all audiences.
00:02:16
Speaker
This is season one of Benita and the Baracas, and the name of this season is I Dated a Serial Killer. You kinda did. Kinda did. Yes. So joining me to explain all this is my dear best friend Nancy. Hey, Nance. Hey, how are you, Benita? Before we launch this thing, I wanted to explain this title, because it is a bit provocative, and you're like, wait, what the hell? Yeah, don't get it twisted.
00:02:46
Speaker
It comes as kind of a joke, but it's sort of a way of making light of this whole horrible thing because not only was this man that lied to me and conned me and lied to me about everything to do with our wedding, he was sadly and tragically also lying to his patients. He was doing this experimental procedure on human beings without doing the proper testing beforehand, basically use people as human guinea pigs. Well, and aside from who knows how many women he's betrayed or lied to,
00:03:15
Speaker
Like you said, this is way more serious than that. I mean, it's just so awful.
Deadly Experiments and Their Consequences
00:03:21
Speaker
He put this artificial trachea, this plastic tube, into a total of eight patients. Only one of those eight patients is still alive, and that person had this thing taken out. This thing didn't work.
00:03:33
Speaker
So somewhere along the way, my daughter started joking. She's like, mom, I tell people you dated a serial killer. I'm like, what? That's terrible. And she said, well, technically, there's at least seven patients who died. So it's kind of her dark, twisted joke. But the sad thing is people did die. And as much as we will laugh and joke and bond in this podcast, there's a huge underlying
00:04:05
Speaker
egregious, terrifying, actually, tragedy. And that's why the show is called, I dated a serial killer. I didn't actually date like a Jeffrey Dahmer or something, but he possibly does fit the category of that, of being some kind of serial
00:04:22
Speaker
murderer. This man is a pathological liar. No guilt, no remorse, no empathy. He doesn't give a f about who he hurts, including his patient. So we will explore all of this and more in season one. And credit to my lovely child for coming up with that provocative title. Hey, Jess is entitled, I tell you.
Meet Nancy and Lee
00:04:45
Speaker
Episode one, Barcelona Secrets with Nancy and Lee.
00:04:49
Speaker
So today on my debut episode, I'm super excited because I have two of my favorite friends, two of my ride or dies, my most favorite people in the world. I have Nancy, who I've known since college actually, coming to us from Florida. Hi, Nance. Hey, Badida. Hey, Nance. Hey, Nance. And then all the way from the Gold Coast of Australia, way 15 hours ahead of us, Lee, my dear friend Lee from Australia.
00:05:21
Speaker
I'm so excited to have you both on the show. This is really fun. Thanks for having us. This is great. I'm going to jump to Nancy first. The show is called Benita and the Baracas. It's a gorgeous word. I love the meaning of this word, but apparently I am completely butchering this word and doing total disservice to this word because I can't roll my Rs.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, yeah, you got to add some sass to it. Show me. Hey everybody, welcome to Benita and the Barakas. Lee, can you say it? Barakas, Barakas, Barakas, Barakas, Barakas, Barakas, Barakas.
00:06:13
Speaker
The reason I picked you two to start with, yes, Lee, you have a question? Wow, I was going to say, just so you're aware, I can also roll my ass. Yeah, but we're not going to show that. Oh, boy. Did she say arse? She said ass. I said ass. Just checking. Thank you.
00:06:36
Speaker
Okay, seriously though you two are two of my most favorite people in the world and my two of my Most favorite badass women and that's what the show is all about is badass women and I'm honored to start this with you And I also just want to start by thanking both of you. I mean this is I
00:06:55
Speaker
We joke, we have fun. We have an incredible bond. We have an incredible friendship. But you two have been there with me through the worst of all of this. You have been by my side every step of the way, both of you. You've been great support system to me. You've made me laugh. You've been there when I've been crying. And I am so grateful to both of you. And I just want to thank you both for your friendship to start.
00:07:18
Speaker
That's easy. We love you. We know we love you. It takes at least two to maintain you anyway, so you know. I love you both too. Exactly. So I'm not even sure exactly where to start, but the whole idea behind this podcast is to showcase strong badass women. But also so many people want to know all the details, the behind the scenes things. I mean, my story has been told so many times, so many different places.
00:07:46
Speaker
But there are a lot of details, as you both know, from doing interviews that get left out. And there are a lot of stories that have never been told. So this is the place to let loose and share and tell those stories.
First Impressions of the Con Man
00:07:56
Speaker
So I guess we should, I was going to start with the whole scene of Barcelona. But before we do that, before we got to Barcelona, which is where I confronted this con man, what were each of your impressions of this man I was supposed to be marrying? But before,
00:08:13
Speaker
Before it all went bad, who did you think this man was? I might start there because I never met him in person until that day in Barcelona. And so my impressions were all the things that you told me of him, which were all divine and happy.
00:08:33
Speaker
You were madly in love, and it seemed to be that he was too, and it's a man that you would spend the rest of your life with. And you were very, very happy. And he seemed to be ticking all of the boxes. Yeah, I mean, I was. I was on cloud nine. I was happy. I really was happy. What about you, Nance? I did get a chance to meet him in New York. I just happened to be in town for business.
00:09:02
Speaker
He was taking out all your friends for dinner. So it was an opportunity to actually meet him face to face. And I swear to God, I thought I was walking in the set of a commercial of Dosecki's guy, the most interesting man in the world. He was at the table and just lavishly, lavishly, he was charming, handsome, and beautiful.
00:09:30
Speaker
sexy and all that good stuff, you know, and everything that a woman would look at. And it was hilarious at the table, because I remember all the women were like, I know, they're all squooning, like, everyone were like, seriously, you know, and the men, the men were looking very uncomfortable. But the women were just like, all like, goo goo eyes, you know,
00:09:53
Speaker
That's because Dr. Paulo Macarini was kind of the perfect guy. He was Italian and with his salt and pepper hair and sophisticated style,
A Lavish Lifestyle and Deceptive Promises
00:10:03
Speaker
people were always comparing him to George Clooney. Oh.
00:10:07
Speaker
hands down, boom. And then, of course, there are his credentials. He was both a scientist and a surgeon. He spoke six or seven languages. He worked at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, which is where they award the Nobel Prize in medicine. And his nickname was the Super Surgeon.
00:10:28
Speaker
He was even rumored to be in contention for a Nobel Prize himself. I mean, the man was impressive. And on top of all that, he was kind, humble, and ridiculously generous.
00:10:43
Speaker
He was forking, he was paying for everything. You remember he would pay for like 20 people, bottles of wine, bottles of champagne. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Besides all the trips that you went on. There were so many trips. Over the course of our two year relationship, he flew me all over the world. Venice, Russia, Mexico, Greece. We're going to wait in Venice.
00:11:10
Speaker
It was like romance on steroids. And even when he had to go away for work, he was always reminding me how much he loved me. And it wasn't just me he pampered. He adored my daughter, who often came on trips with us. And he spoiled my family and friends all the time.
00:11:35
Speaker
Benita and I were celebrating our birthday month in April. He sent me this beautiful bouquet of roses and your birthday is a few weeks before mine. And he sent you, wasn't it like two dozen white roses or something? You got the long stem, two dozen red, because they were massive. And then I got the dozen, they were incredibly beautiful. Almost like to the point where, God, I never received, I don't think I've ever received, what the fuck? I haven't received long stem roses.
00:12:03
Speaker
like that from anybody in my lifetime. What the hell? Oh, it was insane. Perfect man. He really was the perfect man. And when he proposed, I was elated. Everyone was. I'd found that elusive fairy tale kind of bliss that only seems to exist in movies. Paolo wanted a big Catholic wedding in Italy.
00:12:29
Speaker
But we were both divorced, and I'm not even Catholic, so finding a priest that was willing to marry us was a problem. But Paolo had a solution. He was the personal private doctor to Pope Francis. That was a big secret, but I had seen documents that reference Paolo's work at the Vatican.
00:12:51
Speaker
And next thing I knew, he goes to the Vatican to ask for help finding a priest, and then tells me, the Pope has actually offered to Marius himself. Yeah, the Pope. The actual Pope. Trust me, I thought it was bullshit too.
00:13:11
Speaker
But it turns out the Popes do marry people sometimes. And as the Pope's personal doctor, it made sense that the Vatican would want to thank Paulo. No, no, no. I'm not joking. We're getting married by the Pope. It was surreal. Our guest list was bonkers.
00:13:34
Speaker
Invitations went out to world leaders like the Obamas and Clintons and A-list artists like John Legend, Elton John and Andrea Bocelli.
00:13:44
Speaker
It was like, oh my God, holy shit. All those people being in one place at the same time. At my wedding. Like, who is Benina gonna send me next to? Please let it be David Beckham. That's what I was thinking. That's my brother and sister-in-law. Our heads were all spinning. I mean, this was like the wedding of the century. But just six weeks before the big day, I made a horrifying discovery.
00:14:13
Speaker
I thought, no, no, this can't happen to Ben. No, no, no, no, no. It was shocking and draining. It made no sense. It was awful. My fiancé, Dr. Paulo Macarini, the famous super surgeon, was a pathological liar. Everything was a lie.
00:14:35
Speaker
He wasn't really divorced. He was not the Pope's personal doctor. The Pope sure as hell was not gonna marry us.
Uncovering the Fiancé's Lies
00:14:44
Speaker
He didn't know any of the celebrities he said were coming. There was never going to be any wedding.
00:14:52
Speaker
And yet he let hundreds of guests purchase plane tickets and fancy black tie clothing. He let me spend thousands of dollars of my own money on couture dresses, quit my network TV job, and pull my daughter out of her private school so we could move to his house in Barcelona after we got married. I was devastated. Who does that?
00:15:17
Speaker
I was also really fucking mad. So I hired two private investigators and on the very same day I was supposed to walk down the aisle, I got on a plane to Europe. I'm a journalist and now I was on a mission. Dr. Paulo Macarini had messed with the wrong woman.
00:15:39
Speaker
I went into investigative mode and I started trying to unravel this whole insane mess of lies. And at some point I asked you both if you would join me. Did you think it was a crazy idea or were you like, let's do it? Hey, I've had much crazier ideas for much less, you know, and this is an adventure we need to go on.
00:15:58
Speaker
But primarily, of course, I was, yeah, you do need to find out. We got to resolve this. The whole purpose of this trip, obviously, was me kind of taking my power back right from the beginning. I decided, okay, I was supposed to have this big fancy wedding and go to all these fancy lavish events and these beautiful, you know, red carpet gowns. I'm going to go anyway and see the places where I was supposed to be, you know,
00:16:24
Speaker
living this fairy tale. So it was part investigative mission. It was part, quite frankly, fuck you mission, you know, you're not you're not doing this to me. And it was, it was part of part of girls trip, right? Okay, I'm not getting married. Let me just have the best girls trip ever. And I really applaud you for that. Thanks, honey. I don't know how many women would do that. Because that's the Baraka in you, Benita. Because to to go to those places to
00:16:52
Speaker
to visualize and physically be in the spot that you were supposed to be in a different scenario, that takes a badass, because I'm sure it had to have been difficult.
00:17:04
Speaker
I think you still weren't a hundred percent convinced either. You wanted to hear from the guy who was running the hotel that there was never a booking. You didn't want to take some girl on the phone word for that. You want, you wanted to, you needed that last little piece of closing evidence, I think.
00:17:24
Speaker
And the hope that was left was maybe this much, but I didn't. I wanted firm, solid answers. I also, by the way, I knew that I was going to confront him with all this at some point. And I knew that he was going to deny. Obviously, he's a pathological liar. He's going to lie to me. So I wanted hard, you know, like paper, solid evidence. I wanted all my ducks in a row. I wanted to have talked to the people myself. I wanted to have it on tape. I wanted to see them myself so that it was indisputable.
00:17:53
Speaker
It didn't take long to get my indisputable evidence. At every wedding venue I went to, I heard the same thing. Nothing was planned. Was it like knives going in you every single time?
The Confrontation in Barcelona
00:18:16
Speaker
Like, how did you physically feel? Do you remember?
00:18:20
Speaker
Like every single time you got another confirmation or was it good or was it bad? I think I was in such a state of shock, you know, and, and, um, infuriation, but at the same time, absolutely confounded that it was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together in my head. Like, how is this possible? This man that I thought was this is lying, literally lying to me about everything. And none of this was planned. And it just, the lies just kept, you know,
00:18:47
Speaker
Mounting and mounting and it's so overwhelming to try and wrap your head around that I was numb, you know Looking at looking at you probably thought about everybody else With with with those little with yeah, it was healing as it was hurting I think that was really helpful to you. You got to feel the pain Check it off your list move on and and I could see that happening to you through each of those little steps and
00:19:15
Speaker
But the real killer came in Barcelona at the house where we were supposed to move after our wedding. My only plan of Barcelona was to go to his house. This was his house that he had never let me see. He had sent me videos of the house. And this is the place where you and I will live for the rest of our life. I love you.
00:19:36
Speaker
But every single time we were supposed to go to Barcelona, the trip got canceled. I mean, he flew me all over the world, but never Barcelona. And we had argued about this a lot in the months leading up to this big fake fantasy wedding. Because I said, who marries a man? Who the hell marries a man without seeing the house where they're going to live? This is a house where me and my daughter were supposed to be moving after the wedding. So I knew something was hiding in that house in Barcelona, right? I didn't know what.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I also knew that the only way I would find out would be to surprise him. It had to be the surprise attack. I had to show up when he had no idea I was going to be there. And he told you he was in Russia, right? Yeah. He claimed he was in Russia. Oh, I'm in Russia doing research. I'm like, okay.
00:20:24
Speaker
Everybody's seen the video that's seen my story of us driving in the car, the three of us, and I had decided that, because I didn't know what I was going to encounter, that I was going to come in disguise, and I had this hideous blonde wig on. And then I was forced to drive. Yeah, because I'm hiding in a backseat in a blonde wig.
00:20:42
Speaker
At that point, we were three friends who were in this together. You guys were at my absolute ride or dies. You were going in with me, whatever we found, and we were all nervous. I mean, I was almost shaking nervous, almost sick nervous. Oh, you were? Oh, my heart was racing. And I was driving on these roads like this. We didn't know what we were going to find in that house, but my fiancé had lied so much
00:21:10
Speaker
I had no idea who he was. He worked in Russia with all of this. There were all these things adding up. We had no idea who this man really is. Who does he really know? What are his connections? Anything was up for grabs at that point. He, you know, and it was scary. Not only was it anger and frustration, it was also fear. Yeah. Fear because it's like, okay, if he could do that to you, what else can he do to you?
00:21:34
Speaker
Before we drove up the hill to Paolo's house, we made a pit stop. This mission called for a little liquid courage. Massive amounts of liquor. So we stopped at this grocery store. I stayed in the car, like powering down in the back. Yes. And I had these big sunglasses on. Just in case. Yeah, that's right. Just in case he popped out. And you guys walk out of the store with literally, like, armed loads of booze. And you're like, look. Why? They were sampling.
00:22:05
Speaker
whose samples liquor at the grocery store. I didn't have any Spanish wines before. Yeah, you gotta taste them to see if I like the road. They were like sangria, one euro, and literally the whole backseat of the car was filled with goose. Oh yeah, it was so cheap. It was good, yeah. And it was good, it was cheap and good. So we slugged our cheap bubbly and braced ourselves. We're getting ready to do a little road trip. Also known as a drive-by.
00:22:39
Speaker
We nervously drove up the hill, then stopped right above Paolo's house, where I could secretly record on my cell phone. I stayed in the car and I sent you two down the hill to do the sort of initial reconnaissance and figure out what was going on. I fully expected if he was there. I had fully intended to jump out of the car and march down there and confront him.
00:23:13
Speaker
And Lee just knocked down his door and I saw him come down the steps with his dog. Asshole, he's there. Not in fucking Russia. My heart is in my chest. What a puke. You lying fucking sack of shit. Yeah, I see you. I see you in your white shirt and your black shorts and your gray hair. Fuck you. But what I saw next absolutely crushed me. Blondes! Fucking little blondes, you asshole! Fuck you! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you!
00:23:24
Speaker
I thought there was going to be a confrontation.
00:23:45
Speaker
There was another woman living there with Paolo, not the Italian wife he claimed he divorced someone else. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they had two little kids. I wanted to kick him in the balls. I just wanted to hurt him, physically hurt him.
Emotional Devastation and Closure
00:24:17
Speaker
The hardest video for me to watch is that audio of me melting down in the car where I'm just... I always describe it as I'm not even crying. I'm just wailing. I'm screaming. Yeah, you were inconsolable. I recorded that.
00:24:33
Speaker
And I don't know why. I just said it right on the center council while we were driving away. And you never want anyone to hurt like that. And I didn't record it for like, Oh my God, this is great footage or anything. We were just in the moment and it was like, fuck, you know, here we are. And this is, this is that outcome.
00:24:55
Speaker
It was gut-wrenching pain. Because in that moment, it was what you were saying that I had this tiny bit of unanswered thing or tiny bit of hope. And in that moment, all that went out the window. Literally, I mean, this man had a whole other family in the house where me and my daughter were supposed to be moving in that weekend. And the depraved gravity of the lies at that point just hit me like a ton of bricks.
00:25:22
Speaker
The question I get asked all the time, it's like, wait a minute, why didn't you go and confront him? Why didn't you go scream at him? Why didn't you go slap him across the face?
00:25:33
Speaker
First of all, it was such a shock. I was supposed to marry the damn man. And then the killer was to see this whole other family and little kids. And that was the screeching halt for me. I mean, we're all moms. I couldn't do that to those kids. That's when everything to me was like, er, no. Same here. I think the same for us. 100%. Those are innocent kids.
00:25:57
Speaker
Paolo never knew I was watching him from the car. These two badass buracas, my ride or dies, quickly got me out of there and came up with a strategy to stop me from falling apart. During the whole trip, we'd been taking photos to show my lying fiance exactly what I really think of him. It was different landmarks and periodic places where you were physically there, but then
00:26:27
Speaker
He deserved the damn finger. There was another moment of defiance in every picture. I'm just like, F you, you know, fuck you. That was me like, no, you're not destroying me. You're not taking me down. And it's a simple little gesture, but it was me like, no, I'm strong. I'm going to fight back. I'm going to get through this.
00:26:49
Speaker
So that's where the song came up too, Miss Lee. Right, that's how the song came, Lee, remember? I'm in the backseat crying, you guys are trying to cheer me up, and Lee, you just started singing the song. Yes, yes, it was the fuck you song.
00:27:31
Speaker
You were just thinking, you know, making up lyrics. Because I know you. Yeah. And humor has always worked for me in the past to get you back on your feet. And so I thought, let's turn this around. We all need some lightness.
00:27:49
Speaker
You were in terrible pain and we were anguished by what we found in the house and we all needed some levity and thanks to the cheap one. I wrote a song about it. Here it goes. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
00:28:17
Speaker
That's one of my favorite moments. It has to be. I managed to laugh through my tears at Lee's song, and then it was time to finally confront Paulo. I sat down and wrote him a long, angry text. You make me sick. This is so egregiously appalling that I still can't believe you actually did it and that you can still face yourself in the mirror. Who the hell are you? Why the hell did you have to mess up my life? This is it. This is over. I never want to see you again. I never want to talk to you again.
00:28:47
Speaker
He wrote back, but all he said was one word. Wow. Yep, that's it. Just wow. I guess he knew he was caught and had nothing else to offer. But at least I had the answers I'd come looking for. Here we are in Barcelona and it's mission accomplished.
00:29:13
Speaker
Benny now knows with no shreds of doubt who this guy is, but she can move on. She's going to have a great life. So is Nancy, one hell of a woman. And so am I. Mission accomplished.
Journey from Devastation to Empowerment
00:29:37
Speaker
My friends, who call me by my nicknames Ben or Benny, were every bit as emotionally exhausted by all of this as I was.
00:29:46
Speaker
You think you're walking down the aisle and this fairy tale into this happily ever after. The rug is pulled out from under you. Everything just blew up. You're railroaded. On top of the devastation of all that and all the implications of that, you're trying to wrap your head around the fact that, how did this happen to me? I'm a journalist. I'm an investigative journalist. I'm smart. I'm successful. I am not supposed to get duped, and I just got duped. To admit that is
00:30:15
Speaker
gut-wrenchingly difficult. It's so humiliating, and I really wanted to just hide, like crawl under the bed and hide. Well, especially all the family that you had to call. Oh my God. All of you. Everybody lost money. It wasn't just me. It was all the people that I loved the most who all were on this bandwagon because I believed it, you believed it, and I felt responsible, and I felt guilty, and you've all invested in this fantasy that I've all dragged all of you into.
00:30:44
Speaker
It's so overwhelmingly difficult and painful. But one thing was weighing on me far more than my own pain. My daughter. When Paulo sauntered into our lives on his fake white horse, she was just nine years old and her dad had just died from cancer. That incensed me. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you were.
00:31:09
Speaker
Oh man, it's one thing to do it to me, as devastated as I was, I knew that one way or another I was going to be okay. I always pick myself up off the ground. I'm always okay somehow. I can do this, but to do that to my daughter, my child,
00:31:26
Speaker
who lost her father to cancer and to sit in front of a child and lie and talk about the school she's going to and talk about the home and to a nine-year-old child, that's inexcusable. As an alliance, he just used to. Utterly inexcusable. Completely. And I think that was the time I saw a different heartbreak in you. But seeing you break on a different level,
00:31:55
Speaker
for her. She kicked in the mama bear mode. Yes, she did. Exactly right. And I think as much as investigative journalism got you through the process of that.
00:32:07
Speaker
I think it was Jess that really fired your anger. I saw that just fire up. How dare you? How dare you? It's still unfathomable to me. I still cannot wrap my head around the lies that he told and why? Why?
00:32:26
Speaker
I had so many questions. What was Paolo's plan? What would the crazy man have done if I hadn't uncovered his lies and everyone showed up in Italy for the wedding? And what the hell else was he hiding?
00:32:44
Speaker
It just gave me chills because I thought if this man is lying to me like this at such an extreme level and telling such fantastic, absurd, ridiculous lies, I didn't have evidence of it, but I just thought there's no way he can be that duplicitous and not also be lying in his medical life. And that was horrifying, right? Because that means people's lives are at risk. People could be dying. And that was what propelled me more than anything. I wanted to just
00:33:12
Speaker
curl up in a ball and disappear, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. I felt like I have a responsibility to expose this man. I knew I was going to have to take my story public and let the whole world know who Dr.
Teaser for Next Episode
00:33:25
Speaker
Paolo Macarini really is. Phew, but I had no idea what I was in for. Coming up on the next episode with Nancy and Lee, the very scary repercussions of telling the truth about my lying, famous fiancée.
00:33:42
Speaker
Do you remember that guy that made the threats to you that was gonna hurt you and kill you? I had to call the FBI.
00:33:49
Speaker
But all of that is for the next episode. And because I want to end this one on an upbeat note, a reminder that as Baracas, we're in this together. Women have to support each other. And that's another part of my message about let's lift each other up. Let's empower each other. Let's embrace each other. Let's knock each other down. You've got nothing to lose by being supportive because we all need help. I guess one of the messages in this thing is the simple messages, right?
00:34:18
Speaker
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And there is no such thing as the perfect anything, really, right? The perfect man, perfect relationship, perfect woman. But I had to laugh today because all the Christmas stuff is coming out in the stores. And I found this today. Can you see? It's a chocolate Santa, but he's half naked. And it says he's the perfect man. Oh, damn. Let me see that. That's some fine chocolate. Whoa.
00:34:51
Speaker
That's the perfect man. So this is the perfect man. Don't get us started. That's a whole nother podcast. I know. I want to raise a toast to both of you. Do you still have your drinks?
00:35:19
Speaker
It's a bit sad. It's to have a drink. Hang on a minute. We can fix this. No, but I- I don't think we need more. In all seriousness, no, I just, I want to thank you for being on my first podcast and also for just being my ride or dies and being there and being, let me see if I can say this right, and being some badass fierce Barakas. Did I get it right? No, not yet. Not really.
00:35:45
Speaker
We'll work on it, though. That's the joy of episode two. OK, you close it. You can salsa dance. You can salsa dance. You can roll your ass. You say it right and you close it, since I can't pronounce it. Yeah. But she can dance her salsa better than me. That I can do. She can salsa circles around me. So on behalf of the Baracas, we thank you and we wish you all a pleasant
00:36:15
Speaker
incredible journey. Love you guys. Thank you. Bye. Love you. Ciao.
00:36:22
Speaker
This episode is hosted and executive produced by me, Benita Alexander. My guests are Nancy Comba and Lee McKenzie. Directors of photography and editors, Yaseed Lopez and Chad Harper. Hairstylist, Alfred Tom. Makeup artist, Denika Mele. Original music, Kunta official beats. Sound, Chad Harper, Yaseed Lopez and Ed Reynolds.
00:36:48
Speaker
This is Benita and the Barakas. You can find me on Instagram at love.com. L-O-V-E-C-O-N-N-E-D