Just The Gist

Blake Lively's racially offensive attempt at a Goop website. The Kardashian Kard. Pharrell's drink FOR LADIES. An iconic list to be on. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At this point we’ve all heard that Kelly Clarkson got really mad this week when (she says) she was denied the chance to buy a $15,000 wooden bird automaton. But this isn’t actually the first time Kelly Clarkson made headlines for being really, really mad that she wasn’t allowed to buy something. In 2012, Kelly Clarkson outbid the Jane Austen House Museum at auction, paying £150,000 to buy the only existing ring ever to belong to Jane Austen. There are less than 50 existing Jane Austen-owned artifacts total, only three pieces of jewellery, and only ONE ring. The museum wanted the ring so they could preserve it as part of Jane Austen’s legacy and share it with Jane Austen fans for generations to come. Kelly Clarkson wanted it so she could wear it. As her engagement ring. There was a public outcry at the time, but Kelly wouldn’t budge. NOBODY TELLS KELLY CLARKSON SHE CAN’T BUY A THING. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of the time Kelly Clarkson was not allowed to buy Jane Austen’s ring: the 2012 Sotheby’s bidding…

If you’ve seen Christa Pike’s name in the headlines this week next to the words “botched execution” and have no idea what actually happened, this is the episode for you. Last week, on the 30th of September 2026, Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike, who had spent 30 years as the only woman on the state’s death row for a murder she committed at 18. The first lethal dose of pentobarbital didn’t kill her. Neither did the second. After two hours behind a closed curtain she left the death chamber in an ambulance, and five days later she woke up in hospital and asked where she was. Her lawyers say she’s the only person known to have survived a completed execution in US history, and nobody, including the Governor of Tennessee, seems to know what happens now. But in all of this, the victim has been forgotten. Her name was Colleen Slemmer. She was 19, a Florida kid in a ‘Computer Geek’ T-shirt who had left home for the first time to study computers at a Job Corps centre in Knoxville, and who phoned her mum on the…

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Most people think of 'Shark Tank' as the show where hopeful entrepreneurs try to get rich people to invest in their ridiculous inventions (wine for cats, anyone?). And while that's a big part of it, Shark Tank has (surprisingly) also been the launch of some BILLION dollar companies. Scrub Daddy was discovered on Shark Tank, and it's not even close to being the most successful company that got its start on the show. One shark put $50,000 into a product that had not sold a single unit, and it has made her tens of millions. Another turned a $400,000 investment into an estimated $300 million. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the top ten Shark Tank success stories: the billion dollar brands, the best deals Lori Greiner, Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John and Robert Herjavec ever made, and the no-deal pitch Kevin O'Leary now calls probably the biggest miss in the show's history. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by…

In 1995, Selena Quintanilla was about to become one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Just 23 years old, she was already considered the Queen of Tejano music and was easily the most famous singer on the Latin-American charts. .People often said it wasn’t that she was ‘the Latin Madonna’ but that Madonna was ‘the English Selena’. She'd just played to a record 61,000 people at the Houston Astrodome in her home state of Texas, she'd won a Grammy, she was the face of Coca-Cola, and she was halfway through recording her first English-language pop album that was going to make her a household name everywhere, not just Texas. Until, one morning in March 1995, Selena was suddenly and shockingly murdered by the president of her fan club. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast…

"I hope your venue gets firebombed." That was a real comment on a real Instagram post from a small lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, announcing that one night a week, masks would be optional. The Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue opened in 2025 as a COVID-conscious, anti-capitalist bar where no one could be turned away, and it's now the subject of what has reportedly become the Boston Globe's most clicked story in a decade. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the Last Ditch lesbian bar: the $50,000 loan, the 400-comment Instagram post, the 3½ hour community meeting that fell apart on Zoom, and the co-founder who left to go to clown school. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at…

This month marks 25 years since 9/11, and of all the images to come out of that day, possibly the most haunting is one that was published the next morning and then quietly disappeared. Richard Drew's photo of a man falling headfirst beside the North Tower of the World Trade Center caused so much outrage when it ran on 12 September 2001 that newspapers stopped printing it almost overnight. Around 200 people fell from the Twin Towers that morning, but only one became a symbol, and journalists spent years trying to put a name to him. Should they have? This is Just The Gist of The Falling Man: the Associated Press photographer who captured every person he saw fall, the Windows on the World staff trapped above the fire, Tom Junod's 2003 Esquire story that became one of the magazine's most read ever, the search for his identity that reached the families of Norberto Hernandez and Jonathan Briley, and the widow who begged a reporter to clear her husband's name. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more,…

We published our 'Just The Gist of The Lindsay Clancy Case' episode (you can listen to it here) a few weeks ago, and it very quickly became one of our most listened to eps ever. Now that the case has ended in a mistrial, we had a chat about it all on Just The Gist's weekly paid bonus show Breakin' Nooz - about where the case stands now, and the (mostly) respectful and thoughtful discussion the episode caused amongst our listeners, who both agreed and disagreed with each other, and our approach. Since this is a topic that resonated so significantly with so many gisteners, we decided to take the chat from this week's Breakin' Nooz and put it outside the paywall so anyone can listen. But please remember - this is JUST a chat! Breakin' Nooz is very conversational and casual in nature. If you're after the usual, comprehensive JTG-style coverage of the Lindsay Clancy case, definitely listen to the episode first. ... BREAKIN' NOOZ! eps are bonus content for Just The Gist's paid subscribers. Episodes drop every…

Dolly Parton died last week at 80, and she may literally be the last universally loved person we’ll ever see. This is the whole story: the girl born in a one-room shack in the Smoky Mountains with no electricity and 11 siblings, who wrote her first song at five, played the Grand Ole Opry at 13, and moved to Nashville the day after she graduated high school (where she met her husband of 60 years at a laundromat, on her first ever go at a washing machine). The Porter Wagoner years, 'Jolene', the resignation letter that became 'I Will Always Love You', '9 to 5', Dollywood, and the quietly enormous philanthropy: the Imagination Library that has given away over 330 million books, the Moderna vaccine money, the children's hospital that now carries her name, and the fact she was secretly a producer on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. Musical genius, business brain, and possibly the most generous person in American entertainment history. Also a great flirt. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's…

Selena Gomez is being sued for fraud. Investors say the mental health startup she founded with her mum, Mandy Teefey, took their millions based on promises that never came true. Based on Selena's massive star power, the company valued at $200 million before it had made a single dollar. But besides a website, what did Wondermind actually DO? (not much, apparently.) This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of Wondermind: the Selena Gomez fraud lawsuit, co-founder Daniella Pierson who Anna Delvey'd her way onto the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and the co-CEO mum who allegedly spent her days in the office sleeping and watching TV. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us…

"Tape mouth. Handcuff. Explain situation." When police finally searched missing conman Ron Levin's Beverly Hills mansion in 1984, they found a seven-page murder to-do list, left behind on the killer's own personalised letterhead, signature doodled all over it. The killer was Joe Hunt, the 24-year-old leader of the Billionaire Boys Club, an LA investment group made up of the rich, bored, freshly graduated sons of men they could never hope to impress. Hunt promised them a genius trading formula that couldn't fail. What he actually built was a Ponzi scheme, a pseudo-intellectual bro cult, and eventually two murders in which almost nobody involved had any actual money. This is the story of the scammer who got scammed, and possibly the only murderer in history to bring a to-do list. This is Just The Gist of the Billionaire Boys Club: Joe Hunt, the murder of Ron Levin, the fake $5 million trading account, the 1987 Judd Nelson miniseries, and the Kevin Spacey movie that made $618 on its opening weekend. . We give…

“Move over Birkin. Watch out Chanel. There’s a new apex predator.” OF LUXURY GOODS. A luxury bag made of T-rex leather was unveiled earlier this year at Amsterdam Art Zoo Museum. The leather was made by taking some collagen remnants found in a 68-million-year-old T-Rex femur bone, and smooshing them with some cells to grow T-Rex skin. That skin was then turned into leather, dyed a bluish-grey and ‘crafted’ into a luxury handbag. Experts are predicting it will sell for the amount of ‘ten Birkin Bags’. But complex science had to be part of making this happen, so was any of this (at all… even a little) for scientific benefit? Or medical research and development? Lol no. IT’S ALL ABOUT CAPITALISM BÉBÉ. The luxury industry is apparently freaking out that billionaires aren’t as interested in the usual ‘luxury goods’ anymore, because they hate that the normies (AKA the poors AKA you and me) can access the same stuff. (See last week’s JTG MINI on the Hermes Birkin.) And what’s the point of buying a thing if all the…

You can walk into an Hermès store with 20 grand in cash, ask for a Birkin bag, and they will say no. Because Hermès doesn't sell you the world's most coveted handbag, Hermès decides if you DESERVE one. Hopeful customers spend years (and tens of thousands of dollars) buying scarves, blankets and homewares first, stuff Hermès clients literally call 'garbage', all in the hope of one day being invited to spend another 15 grand on a bag. It's called The Hermès Game, and thousands of people are playing it right now. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of The Hermès Game: Jane Birkin and the sketch on an Air France sick bag, quota bags and the pre-spend, the 10.1 million dollar original Birkin, and the sales associates who insist there are no bags in the back (there are bags in the back). . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist…

The Lindsay Clancy case is the story everyone seems to be talking about right now. But if you haven’t been following Lindsay Clancy’s story from the start, it’s a hard one to catch up on, so this episode breaks it all down and gives you just the gist of what you need to know. In January 2023, after months of desperately trying to get help for her declining mental health, Lindsay Clancy took the lives of her three young children, and ended up paralysed in an attempt to take her own. She was charged with murder, and has been in custody in a psychiatric facility ever since. Her trial began in July 2026, with Lindsay’s legal team arguing she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and is not criminally responsible. The prosecution is arguing the killings were planned. Her husband (who was tragically the one to find Lindsay and their children Cora, Dawson and Callan back in 2023) has since divorced her and remarried, but has made it very clear that he forgives her, saying: “I wasn’t married to a monster. I was…

Surprise! Free for everyone this week! It's not news, it's NOOZ! In these JTG BONUS eps, Rosie Waterland gives just the gist of the week's most important nonsense. Episodes drop every Tuesday (along with a bunch of other bonus stuff!) for members of The Gistener Club, which you can access via the Just The Gist Patreon right here or through Apple Premium Subscriptions. This week! What do you get when you mix just the right amount of bogan nostalgia and sequinned glam? THE LOGIES. Australia's night of nights, hosted this year by national treasure Robert Irwin, who is never not smiling or reading an autocue. Protect him at all costs. The Jake Schroeder (@frostedjake) and Sam Altman saga has finally come to an end, and Rosie refuses to accept that it was fake. THIS GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. There are updates in the whole Phia scandal (gisten to our recent episode JTG MINI: What is going on with Phia? here) and things don't look good for billionaire offspring Phoebe Gates, with messages seeming to prove she…

In the 1960s, Margaret Howe Lovatt became part of a NASA-funded experiment to teach a dolphin named Peter to speak English. What started as groundbreaking interspecies communication research quickly turned into something much more controversial when Margaret moved into a flooded house to live with Peter 24/7 for six months. As Peter reached sexual maturity, their relationship crossed boundaries in ways that would overshadow the entire experiment and become one of the most shocking animal research scandals in scientific history. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's this: The Guardian's comprehensive investigation - "The dolphin who loved me: the Nasa-funded project that went wrong" (2014) The Atlantic's detailed report - "How A Science Experiment Led to Sexual Encounters Between a Woman and a Dolphin" (2014) BBC documentary - "The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins" (2014) BBC documentary clip - "Teaching a dolphin to speak English" footage Margaret Howe Lovatt Wikipedia page - Complete biography…

(ENCORE!) We spoke on JTG’s bonus Breakin’ Nooz this week about eBay agreeing to pay $56 million to Ina and David Steiner - the unassuming, nerdy married couple that eBay executives terrorised with live cockroaches and spiders, a bloody pig mask and a funeral wreath - all because Ina wrote about negatively about eBay on her nerdy industry blog ‘ECommerceBytes’. When we first released this episode, eBay had been found guilty, the CEO had lost his job and the Steiners had sued the company for compensation, but not yet agreed on an amount. It turns out Ina and David kept turning eBay’s offers down, until eBay agreed to give them every last thing they wanted - and they had some very specific demands. (BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT! The CEO literally had spiders sent to their home!) Listen to this crazy story again, or hear it for the first time and marvel that the company whose motto is 'People are basically good' did any of this. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the eBay stalking scandal: former CEO Devin Wenig, the…

"My eyesight is not so good darling, I didn't want to miss." The line that finally convinced her own daughters she'd done it, after 17 years of prison visits. In 1995, Maurizio Gucci walked into his office building in Milan and was shot four times. His ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani was convicted of arranging the hit, and their two daughters - Alessandra and Allegra Gucci - spent nearly two decades visiting her in prison, certain she was innocent. Because the list of people who may have wanted Maurizio dead was long: he had ousted every other Gucci from the family company, cut off the licensing deals making his cousins rich, and sent his own 81-year-old uncle to prison for tax evasion. Then he lost Gucci anyway. This is Just The Gist of the murder of Maurizio Gucci: the true story behind the 2021 Ridley Scott film 'House of Gucci' starring Lady Gaga, the family feud that cost the Guccis their own brand, and Patrizia Reggiani, the ex-wife who now spends her days luxury shopping with a parrot on her shoulder. . We…

"There’s a reason being hung upside down was once used as a form of torture." It’s the horror story cavers tell each other as a warning. In 2009, 26-year-old medical student John Jones went spelunking with his brother and nine friends in Utah’s Nutty Putty Cave - a system of tunnels so tight you literally have to breathe out to fit through them. John was aiming to squeeze through the famous tunnel called ‘The Birth Canal’. But... he picked the wrong tunnel. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of the Nutty Putty Cave: John Edward Jones, the dead-end tunnel called ‘Ed’s Push’, the 137 rescuers who spent 27 hours trying to reach him, and the reason the cave has been sealed shut with concrete ever since. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there’s Breakin’ Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok…

One day they were the most powerful and wealthy royal family in the world, their ancestors having been in charge of Russia for more than 300 years. NEK MINIT... Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alix and their five children (including the legendary Anastasia) are taken down to a basement in the middle of the night and killed, in a VERY botched and violent execution. For years, Russia refused to acknowledge what really happened that night, which led to much speculation about their fate. Thanks to DNA testing, the bodies of Nicholas, Alix and four of their children were finally identified and given a royal burial in 1998. But the skeletal remains of the other two Romanov children are still, to this day, sitting in a Russian archive, because the Russian Orthodox Church refuses to acknowledge them as authentic Romanovs, despite DNA proof. So... does the church know something we don’t know? Did all of the Romanovs actually die that night? Or did 16-year-old Anastasia escape and move to Florida, eventually retire…

Her story was one of triumph over trauma. When the planes flew into the World Trade Center twin towers on September 11, 2001, Tania Head was on the floor where the plane hit the south tower. With her arm almost completely severed, she somehow made it out, only to still be at ground zero when the tower collapsed. One of the few survivors pulled from the rubble, Tania woke up in hospital with horrific injuries, only to be told that her fiancé, who was in the other tower, has died. She goes on to become president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, and is the public face of those who made it out. One little problem - Tania had never even been to the World Trade Center. Not only was she not in New York City on 9/11, she wasn't even in the United States. Her name wasn't even Tania. This is Just The Gist of Alicia Esteve Head: the fake 9/11 survivor, the 2007 New York Times investigation that exposed her, and the 2012 documentary' The Woman Who Wasn't There' that asked the question everybody wanted the…

Phoebe Gates, the 23-year-old daughter of billionaires Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, has spent the last year insisting her shopping app Phia would succeed with, quote, 'no ties to my privilege or my last name'. And it seemed to be working: Phia raised $43.5 million from investors including Khloe Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Sydney Sweeney, and hit a $185 million valuation in less than two years. Then on the 9th of July 2026, a Bloomberg investigation alleged the app had been faking how well it was doing with a sneaky trick called 'cookie stuffing', possibly defrauding investors and affiliate partners out of tens of millions of dollars. It's so serious that the last people caught doing it were prosecuted by the FBI and went to federal prison. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of Phia, Phoebe Gates and the fake clicks scandal: the Bloomberg cookie stuffing investigation, the celebrity investors, and the self-made girlboss story that may be unravelling in real time. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you…

His $68 billion fraud literally came down to fake statements printed on a secret floor of the office - so how did he get away with it for long? Bernie Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, and it was shockingly simple. And yeah - he took billions from billionaires, but he also took the life savings and superannuation of everyday people. Homes were foreclosed on and lives were ruined. Bernie insisted only he was to blame, and his wife Ruth and sons Mark and Andrew Madoff denied any knowledge of the fraud. But a 2023 book (Madoff: The Final Word by Richard Behar (2024)) revealed that all three of them may have been far more involved than they insisted. Bernie died alone in prison in 2021, knowing that both Andrew and Mark had died and Ruth was alone in an aged care facility. Did he even care? This is Just The Gist of Bernie Madoff and the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by…

At the peak of the Labubu craze in 2025, Pop Mart, the company behind the viral blind box toys, was worth more than Mattel and Hasbro combined. That's Barbie AND Nerf, beaten by a snaggle-toothed elf from artist Kasing Lung's 'The Monsters' universe, dangling off the designer handbags of Lisa from BLACKPINK, Rihanna and Cher. Then the bubble burst: resale prices cratered, counterfeit 'Lafufus' flooded the market, Pop Mart's stock plunged more than 22 percent in a single day, and founder Wang Ning personally lost 2.7 billion dollars before lunch. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the rise and fall of Labubu: the blind box craze, the celebrity bag charm frenzy, and the toy bubble that burst almost overnight. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram…

EDIT: YES I ACCIDENTALLY SAY 'MATTHEW' INSTEAD OF 'MICHAEL' IN THE FIRST 30 SECONDS I CANNOT FREAKING BELIEVE I DID THAT 🫠😂🫠 (And yes we could go in and change it but I actually think it's extremely funny.) It's hard to imagine anyone but Michael J. Fox playing the iconic role of Marty McFly in 1985's Back To The Future. But another actor was originally cast, and even spent a month filming almost half the movie's scenes before he was informed he was being replaced. That actor was Eric Stoltz - a 23-year-old who had been auditioning for years when he landed the life-changing role of Marty McFly. Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis, Back to the Future was all but guaranteed to launch Stoltz's career into the stratosphere. But just one month into filming, Eric Stoltz was fired and the role was recast with young sitcom actor Michael J. Fox. The Back to the Future trilogy went on to become one of the most successful and iconic franchises in cinematic history. Fox himself became one of the…

In 2006, a man named Guy Goma turned up at the BBC for a job interview in IT support. Ten minutes later, he found himself live on BBC News 24, being introduced to millions as a leading technology journalist. But it's what happens next that made it one of the most viral videos of all time: A look of panic flashes across Guy's face when he realises they've got the wrong person, and rather than point it out, he composes himself, takes a breath and… just goes ahead with the interview. This year, to mark the legendary moment's 20th anniversary, Guy Goma and the producer who put him on air published a book called 'The Wrong Guy: The Inside Story of TV's Greatest Cock-Up'. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow…

Why is a diamond supposed to cost you two months' salary? Why is it THE rock we’re supposed to propose with? Turns out none of it is real. Diamonds aren't rare and they're almost definitely not worth what you paid. All of that was made up by an advertising agency paid by De Beers - the world’s biggest diamond company. Because De Beers knew if people found out that diamonds weren’t actually rare or special, they’d stop buying them. This is Just The Gist of what was arguably one of the best marketing campaigns in history (and the reason that diamond ring on your finger isn’t nearly as valuable as you think): De Beers and the Diamond Marketing Scam. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the…

Nobody knows who buys most of the world's glitter. And whoever it is REALLY doesn't want you to find out. Back in 2018, a New York Times journalist rang one of the biggest glitter companies on the planet and asked a simple question: who is buying all the glitter? They refused to say. Seven years later, the internet still hasn't worked it out. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the glitter conspiracy: the weirdly secretive industry, the interview with 'Glitterex' that kicked it all off, the theories from boat paint to the US military, and the one question nobody will answer. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop…

It was highly requested so here it is: just the gist of the Kennedy family! A basic breakdown of how they came to the US from Ireland, how they became one the wealthiest and most powerful political families in America, and who a bunch of the notable family members (and connections) have been, and are, today. Since I've told a couple of 'Kennedy Family' themed episodes of Just The Gist, (gisten to The Chappaquiddick Incident here and JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Kennedy here), quite a few Gistners asked me to strip it back even further and give just the gist of the general family history. And that's on me! My weird hyperfixation meant I assumed people knew more about this than they do, and one of the major rules at Just The Gist is no assumed knowledge! So consider this Kennedys 101. The basics of what you need to know about them to understand any of our Kennedy-themed episodes. And ooft there's a lot of them - John F. Kennedy and Jackie O, Bobby Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Maria Shriver, Chris Pratt, Big Edie and…

Once both Senator Ted Kennedy's older brothers had been assassinated, he was widely expected to finish what JFK and Bobby had started by running for President in the next US election. Until, late one Friday night in 1969, Ted Kennedy got drunk at a party, crashed his car off a bridge, where it flipped mid-air and landed upside down in the pond below. Ted managed to swim free, but rather than calling for help or alerting authorities, he left his car submerged in the water and went back to his hotel to sleep it off. Still inside the car though, was Ted Kennedy's passenger: 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. Mary Jo was alive for more than an hour, trapped in a tiny air pocket until she suffocated to death, waiting for help that never came. Ted Kennedy wasn't punished, and while he didn't end up President, he did go on to spend the next 40 years as one of the most respected and longest serving members of the US Senate. This is Just The Gist of The Death of Mary Jo Kopechne, otherwise known as 'The Chappaquiddick…

In what eventually became known as ‘THE CRAPPENING’, a Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped 800 pounds of toilet waste while driving across the Kinzie Street Bridge in Chicago in 2004. And in an example of what might be the most perfect - yet unfortunate - timing ever, there just happened to be an open-air sightseeing tour boat passing directly under the bridge at the exact same time… Dave Matthews Band tried to deny being involved, but after being soaked in what was described as a "rust-coloured waterfall” the 120 passengers who were aboard ‘Chicago’s Little Lady’, and soon the entire city of Chicago, were demanding answers. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's this: Dave Matthews Band bus incident Wikipedia page - Complete incident details and aftermath WBEZ 20-year anniversary coverage - "20 years after that disgusting Dave Matthews Band incident, victims now can laugh about it" (2024) CBS Chicago retrospective - "Remembering the disgusting Dave Matthews Band bus incident 20 years later"…

In 2010, NBC tried to hand The Tonight Show, the 60-year-old crown jewel of American late night, to two different comedians. The five-year succession plan they spent years building collapsed in seven months, took down the entire network's primetime line-up with it, and ended with $45 million in severance, one million people in "I'm With Coco" t-shirts, and one of the great public-image collapses in TV history. Sixteen years later, Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno have still never spoken. This is Just The Gist of the Tonight Show battle between Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno. ...... We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop singing…

Inside an average bee hive, 80,000 bees are running a 99% female matriarchy. The queen is the only one allowed to have sex, baby queens are made not born, and male drones get kicked out to starve in winter when they stop being useful. Throw in a mid-air sex club, royal jelly, and a waggle dance, and it might just be the most ruthlessly efficient society on earth. This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of a day in the life of a bee. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop singing so much? Email us at hello@justthegist.com.au Just The Gist is a Just The Network production. Executive Producer and Host: Rosie Waterland | Senior…

She was the most famous female pilot in history, a feminist icon, and arguably the world's first influencer, all carefully built by her book publisher husband George Putnam. But when Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific in 1937, the conspiracy theories went wild: Japanese spies, government cover-ups, secret island lives. Eighty-nine years on, the most likely explanation for what happened to her might also be the most disturbing of all. This is Just The Gist of Amelia Earhart: the brilliant PR campaign, the doomed 1937 round-the-world flight, and the theory that has haunted Howland Island ever since. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a…

Two decades on, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is still remembered as the wholesome reality TV outlier of the early 2000s, the show even Michelle Obama showed up for. Each week, Ty Pennington and his TV crew would demolish a deserving family's falling-down house, build them a 7-bedroom mansion in 7 days complete with movie theatres and heated pools, and reduce an entire town to tears. So why did so many of those families end up bankrupt, and in some cases, homeless? This is Just The Gist of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: the 2004 reality juggernaut that pulled 12 million viewers a week, the 7-day mansion builds, and the families who lost everything when the cameras left. Thanks to our VERY SPECIAL VIG GUEST, The Podfather himself, Simon McDermott! We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube…

Three people are dead, more passengers have been diagnosed, and British paratroopers had to parachute medical supplies onto the most remote inhabited island on earth. The Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius is finally on its way home to be disinfected, but the hantavirus outbreak on board has scattered suspected cases across more than a dozen countries. So is this the next covid? And how is it the same virus that killed Gene Hackman's wife last year? This is Just The Gist (MINI) of the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop singing so much? Email us at hello@justthegist.com.au Just The…

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In 2018, a Twitter user called @buzzkillary posted a 30-page PowerPoint titled 'Lorde and Jack Antonoff: An Emotionally Broken Journey', presenting their case that Jack had been cheating on his then-girlfriend Lena Dunham with Lorde while recording Melodrama. ‘The PowerPoint’, as it became known, has long been considered a cult classic internet text by the chronically online, but mostly forgotten by everyone else. UNTIL TWO WEEKS AGO, when Lena published her new memoir Famesick, in which she wrote about her break-up with Jack, and a suspiciously affectionate 'young pop star'. The internet is now declaring ‘The PowerPoint’ vindicated. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of the Lorde/Jack Antonoff PowerPoint. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and…

She would have been 36-years-old this year. Instead, JonBenét Ramsey remains frozen in time as a child beauty queen, and possibly the most famous unsolved child murder in American history. This year marks the 30th anniversary of JonBenet’s death, yet the case remains an open investigation - and is still obsessed over by armchair detectives across the globe. This is Just The Gist of JonBenét Ramsey: the 1996 Boulder, Colorado murder, Patsy and John Ramsey, the 911 call that has been studied for decades, and the 2016 Burke Ramsey interview with Dr. Phil interview that brought renewed interest in the case. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to give us a…

Christine Dawood gave up her seat on the OceanGate Titan sub, so her 19-year-old son Suleman could see the Titanic. Just hours later, Suleman and his father Shahzada were dead. Three years on from the disaster that killed both of them, along with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, Christine has published a book called 'Ninety-Six Hours - A Mother's Search For The Lost Titan Sub', and given a heartbreaking interview to The Guardian about what really happened in the hours after the Titan imploded. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of Christine Dawood: the OceanGate Titan disaster, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Stockton Rush, the seat she gave up, and the four days she waited at sea for news she didn't want to hear. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and…

Imagine walking down the street and bumping into someone who looks exactly - EXACTLY - like you? You each talk to your adoptive parents and find out you were adopted from the same agency, on the same day. Then you find out not only are you twins, but TRIPLETS. Three of you have been walking around, your entire lives, looking exactly like each other, and you only grew up a few miles apart. That's what happened to Bobby Shafran, David Kellman and Eddie Galland, the triplets who later became the subjects of incredible 2018 documentary Three Identical Strangers. But as the doco reveals, there was actually a very dark reason Bobby, David and Eddie had been separated. In a secret collaboration between Dr. Neubauer and the Louise Wise Adoption Agency, the boys were unknowingly part of a psychological experiment designed to answer the ultimate question of 'nature vs. nurture' - an experiment that would end up having horrific consequences. And they weren't the only kids involved. This is just the gist of Bobby, David…

Get in losers - two identical blonde ladies with the same name are fighting online. But WHY are the Call Her Daddy mogul and TikTok's 12-million-follower It Girl beefing with each other? Alex Cooper signed Alix Earle and her new podcast ‘Hot Mess’ to the Unwell Network in 2023. Two years later, Alix Earle skipped an Unwell Super Bowl party (GASP!) and got dropped from the Unwell network. Last week, she reposted a Tiktok calling Alex Cooper the grim reaper. Alex Cooper replied with a video telling Alix Earle to cut the passive-aggressive reposting nonsense and just say what she wants to say. None of this matters, but everyone seems to be talking about it, so Rosie sacrificed herself at the altar of the internet to figure out what the hell is going on (and damn it, it’s juicy - even James ended up invested). This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of the Alex Cooper vs Alix Earle feud. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining…

Domestic violence that nobody took seriously, a racist police force with no accountability, a car chase watched by the entire world and… Kim Kardashian’s childhood bedroom. After the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the trial of O.J. Simpson turned into a media circus - and was the perfect storm of events and timing that O.J. needed to be found not guilty. This is Just The Gist of the O.J. Simpson trial: ‘if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit’, Marcia Clark, the bloody glove, a jury locked up for eight months and an 85-year-old Fred Goldman refusing to stop hounding O.J. - even after his death. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterland Want to…

How does a 29-year-old with big blue eyes and a killer pitch deck walk into one of the biggest banks in the world and walk out with $175 million? Pretty easily, it turns out. Charlie Javice was a millennial wunderkind, Forbes 30 Under 30 darling, and the founder of FRANK - a student finance start-up helping underprivileged kids get into college (and apparently making millions doing it). After just one meeting with Charlie, JPMorgan Chase wanted in, and they offered her $175 million to buy FRANK. One tiny problem though - Charlie Javice was way better at optics and PR than she was at actually running a business… but she wasn’t going to let that be a reason to turn down $175 mil. What Charlie did next involved a bunch of fake emails and crossing her fingers that JPMorgan Chase wouldn’t bother to check (hint: the dudn't). This is Just The Gist (MINI!) of Charlie Javice, FRANK, a major bank ignoring basic due diligence and the court battle that has already cost more in legal fees than the whole deal did to begin…

In 1971, a man in a business suit and a beige raincoat bought a one-way ticket to Seattle, ordered a bourbon and soda, and handed a flight attendant a note. It said he had a bomb. By the time the plane landed in Reno, he was gone — along with $200,000 in cash and, apparently, any trace of his existence. No body. No parachute. No fingerprints. Nothing. The FBI investigated for decades and officially closed the case in 2016 — never solving it. It remains the only unsolved plane hijacking in US history. This is Just The Gist of DB Cooper: the 1971 Northwest Orient hijacking, the $200,000 ransom, the parachute jump, and the mystery that has never been solved. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Rosie in all…

On March 5th, 2012, a 27-minute YouTube video dropped and within six days, 100 million people had watched it. Every celebrity shared it. Oprah. Beyonce. Everyone. The premise was simple: make a Ugandan warlord named Joseph Kony so famous that the world would have to stop him. It became the fastest viral video in history. But in less than two weeks, the whole thing completely collapsed, ending with the man behind it, Invisible Children founder Jason Russell, having a very public naked breakdown on a street in San Diego. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of KONY 2012: the viral video, Jason Russell and Invisible Children, the slacktivism scandal, the Lord's Resistance Army, and the spectacular public meltdown that ended it all. . We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions. Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcast Follow Just The…

Did you know King Charles was never actually supposed to be King? Charles and Diana, William and Harry - they all would have just been random side-royals if one of their far more important relatives hadn’t quit the royal family. Less than 12 months into his reign, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Even though she never wanted to marry Edward, Wallis was publicly blamed for the royal crisis, which resulted in the newly named ‘Duke and Duchess of Windsor’ being exiled from England for the rest of their lives. And Edward - so used to being treated like a King - found the downgrade to ‘regular citizen’ so difficult, that he and Wallis befriended Hitler and the Nazis, hoping to find a way back onto the world stage. This is just the gist of Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or…

In the movie The Terminal, Tom Hanks plays a man who is forced to live in an airport for 9 months after his passport is declared invalid. Most people know that The Terminal was based on a true story, but they don't know that in real life, Mehran Karimi Nasseri wasn't stuck at the airport for 9 months. He ended up living there for 18 YEARS. He entered the international terminal of Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988, and didn't leave until 2006, all because he didn't have a valid passport. Getting by with gifts from airline staff and travellers, 'Sir Alfred' used two benches as a bed, washed in the airport toilets and ate McDonalds for every meal. This is Just The Gist (MINI) of Mehran Karimi Nasseri; the stateless man who lived in Terminal One at Charles de Gaulle Airport for almost 20 years, the bureaucratic nightmare that put him there, and the far sadder truth about why he stayed. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by…

For more than a decade, the entire McDonalds Monopoly game in the US was completely rigged. From 1989 to 2001, anybody who won a major prize in the competition had actually cheated, with help from someone on the inside. That someone was Jerome ‘Jerry’ Jacobson, Head of Security for the company in charge of making and distributing the McDonald’s Monopoly pieces. But when McDonalds found out that nobody was legitimately winning the major prizes, they still let the public spend their money trying to win in one last competition, because the FBI needed to go undercover to catch the Monopoly cheaters in a massive McSting. And when Jerry Jacobson finally revealed how he had pulled the whole thing off, it literally came down to one accidental fluke. This is Just The Gist of the McDonald’s Monopoly Fraud. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions.…