The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Why "The Let Them Theory" is Terrible Advice For Women, Plus Celebs and the Dangers of Ozempic
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
Maureen Callahan unloads on the massively-successful "The Let Them Theory" and Mel Robbins, how the premise is terrible and ridiculous, the self-defeating philosophy at the center of it, Robbins' lack of self-awareness, and the overall self-help genre aimed at women. Plus, the irresponsible way celebrities like Oprah talk about Ozempic, and the dangerous side effects. And Maureen's brother "Bill From Brooklyn" joins to talk about Ben Affleck's hall of fame tabloid history and his grumpiest moments with J. Lo, bizarre Diddy media coverage, Rosie O'Donnell's Trump-related issues, and more.
Chapter 1: Who is Mel Robbins and what is 'The Let Them Theory'?
At any point in any given day, this woman has clogged up your feed like no other, I am sure. Her name is Mel Robbins. She has a book out. It's called The Let Them Theory. We're going to take this thing apart. If you've already spent money on it, I would request a refund. Uh, and the hugely popular theory that she's been selling, um, on multiple platforms though, these many months.
Uh, so if you haven't had an introduction to her, oh, by the way, before we even get into that, I have an update for you from the last show. And it is a Jon Hamm update because apparently he did not love what we had to say about him. Surprise, surprise.
so in the wake of that segment the daily mail where i call them twice a week reached out to john ham and they called so a young reporter called john ham's cell phone directly now who among you answers an unidentified number on your cell phone Jon Hamm does, proving my point that I don't think he's very bright.
He picks up the phone and the Daily Mail reporter asks if he cares to comment on our explosive blow by blow, no pun intended, of his savage, what I believe to be a near fatal beating of a fraternity pledge when he was in college.
john ham tells the daily mail he was offended to have been contacted by a lowly reporter who are you calling the professionally handsome john ham in the middle of the day um so he says to the reporter i think you should call my rep who are you this is inappropriate it's a very odd choice for you to call me i'd say it's a very odd choice to like beat someone so severely they nearly lose a kidney but
You know, tomato, tomato. He continues, they are claims that have been around for years. No, I don't want to respond. That's not a denial. Again, back to being offended that this no-name nobody called Jon Hamm directly on his cell phone. Who do you think you are, Tina Fey? I'm a little bit offended that you called my personal line. That's why we have representatives, don't you know anything?
Shades of Gayle King, I've been to space, you haven't. Talk to me about it when you come back. Okay, whatever. I'm loving this for Jon Hamm. I hope this sticks to him like Velcro and never goes away. I hope he continues to issue tone deaf, remorseless, non-denials about this
horrific act he perpetrated and you know when i was reading all of these comments and my editor had emailed me about this um it reminded me of an interview this is a story kathy griffin told years ago i felt like i heard it on the howard stern show i could be wrong but we did find her recollection of being at a very intimate very starry a-list hollywood dinner
years ago, and who walks in but Jon Hamm, who she knows from like comedy circles. He's kind of adjacent to her crowd. So he's not an unknown person to her. And she sees him walk in and he's shooting Mad Men. He's at the height of Mad Men fame. He's directing an episode. So he's high on this now because he's not just a mere actor. He's a director. He's an auteur.
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Chapter 2: Why does Maureen Callahan criticize 'The Let Them Theory'?
Chapter 3: What is the story behind Jon Hamm's controversial behavior?
Shades of Gayle King, I've been to space, you haven't. Talk to me about it when you come back. Okay, whatever. I'm loving this for Jon Hamm. I hope this sticks to him like Velcro and never goes away. I hope he continues to issue tone deaf, remorseless, non-denials about this
horrific act he perpetrated and you know when i was reading all of these comments and my editor had emailed me about this um it reminded me of an interview this is a story kathy griffin told years ago i felt like i heard it on the howard stern show i could be wrong but we did find her recollection of being at a very intimate very starry a-list hollywood dinner
years ago, and who walks in but Jon Hamm, who she knows from like comedy circles. He's kind of adjacent to her crowd. So he's not an unknown person to her. And she sees him walk in and he's shooting Mad Men. He's at the height of Mad Men fame. He's directing an episode. So he's high on this now because he's not just a mere actor. He's a director. He's an auteur.
And he enters the room and her heart sinks because she has a good idea of what's coming next. So take a listen to Kathy Griffin on Jon Hamm.
Case in point, a dinner at the legendary talent agent Sue Manger's house, in which I was privileged to be invited. It was, I think, only eight people there, and one of them was the great Jack Nicholson. So when Hammy showed up, I swear to God, inside I was like, oh, great. He even says to me, he goes, what are you doing here? Anyway, he proceeded to get very drunk during the coffee table portion.
And then it was time for dinner. Sue sat hammy next to me, which was uncomfortable, but I wasn't going to bother her. But at least Jack Nicholson was there. And I could focus on hopefully getting to know one of the great actors of our time.
Then Jack, who usually directs whatever he's saying to seemingly like the world at large, he actually focused on me and he went off on this tangent about Rupert Murdoch almost getting a pie in the face during a parliamentary hearing in England. You can look up the clip. Anyway, I was asking Jack about why he was so interested in this and he started doing an imitation of
of Murdoch, the right-wing media mogul, and I was in heaven. And then Hammy picks that moment when Jack Nicholson is talking to me to start whispering like boozy, stupid, yammering attempts at jokes in my ear. So the first one was, you know, your Emmy isn't a real Emmy. I was like, whatever. So I kind of just ignored him. Then the next one, he just goes, you're so old.
I just swear to God, I said it out of the side of my mouth. I go, not now. And then he kept going. Stuff like, do you know how old you look? Finally, I just fucking snap. I just turn. I go, look, you can't keep up. You're outclassed. Zip it. Jack's talking.
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Chapter 4: How are celebrities like Oprah influencing the Ozempic weight loss trend?
Now, before we move on, I just have to say, this woman who also had a very, she had a failed talk show in 2019, and you don't really see this in her algorithm or her Instagram, which by the way, she prefers to show us photos of, and I weep for humanity, truly, These are images of women who have tattooed Let Them on their bodies because I guess it's too difficult to remember.
It's the equivalent of like somebody who has a tattoo that says breathe. It's an involuntary reaction. It keeps you going. You don't have to think about it. Why do you have to tattoo it on your body? So anyway, she had this failed talk show. We never really talk about the show.
And in it, it was in 2019, and she again posited herself as somebody who was going to be America's shrink and help us with, you know, anyone who couldn't afford, let's say, a shrink. She was gonna be your therapist on television. Now, I'm just gonna read you some sample talk show titles. Men Being Catfished, The Mel Robbins Show. I Killed My Ex in Self-Defense, The Mel Robbins Show.
Confronting the Father I Never Knew I Had. Okay, this is Jerry Springer. This is not high-end self-help. So I'm circling back now to Sawyer, the daughter, who worked on this book. You know,
Mel expresses a lot of anger towards Sawyer, and she kind of I think my interpretation is she knifes her a little bit in this book, and I don't quite understand why, but I am loving the lack of self-awareness here on display. So she is talking about she talks about being horrible, a horrible person. She literally writes the words, I was a complete bitch. You know what happened?
She had three couples in a friend group with her and her husband and the other three couples split off and formed their own friend group and expelled Mel and Chris. So I get, again, I think we're getting an indication that Mel can be kind of difficult interpersonally. And she starts talking about like, her kids in this book and in ways that I think like, did her kids like sign off on this?
Were they okay? So Sawyer, again, Sawyer, I see you. I acknowledge you. And I think we're all with you. This is Mel. I have watched our oldest daughter, Sawyer, engage in this type of comparison and torture herself for years. She is hyper fixated on her younger sister, Kendall, who has a completely different body type, bone structure, metabolism, and athletic abilities.
To top it off, Kendall was born with an amazing singing voice and perfect pitch. Sawyer cannot change this. Holy crap. Okay, we go on. I've watched with so much sadness in my heart, in my, I, me, my, we're gonna do a segment on difficult mothers, trust me. I've watched with so much sadness in my heart at how miserable Sawyer makes herself. Dear Lord, and I can't save her.
What, the great Mel Robbins can't save her own daughter? I thought you had all the answers. What's going on over there in Casa Robbins? going on to quote I can't stop her from engaging in this kind of comparison and no amount of complimenting or reassurance is going to change her behavior she must choose to change this for herself oh my God I feel like she is very very
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Chapter 5: What are the dangers and side effects of Ozempic?
hip hop star who loved telling America how much she loved being morbidly obese and how that was an actual healthy, viable lifestyle. And the rest of us could take our fat phobia and shove it. One of my favorite Instagram posts of recent memory is this post Lizzo threw up on her Instagram saying how much, again, she loved being fat. She loved it. Look at those roles.
Look at the amount of weight she is. And this is somebody who performs for a living. Like when you're performing for two hours a night on a live stage, you have to have a ton of energy and athleticism and discipline. Can you like work on the treadmill? Can you like work out on the treadmill while singing and dancing? Like it's, you are an athlete.
one would think anyway we heard a lot from lizzo about how much she loved being fat and now lizzo has suddenly dropped half her body weight it's gone and guess how she's telling us she did it Diet and exercise. And if you believe that, I know you don't believe that. I don't believe that. This reminded me of who I will call patient zero in this story. And I believe it's Star Jones who
Audience members of a certain age will remember this. She was on The View. She was morbidly obese. She married a man of dubious heterosexuality. She used The View as a pump and dump to get sponsors for her wedding. This was an incredible era in The View. It really, really was. It was really fun to watch. Rosie O'Donnell, who we're going to be talking about later, was the lead host at the time.
So Star Jones... takes an exit. She takes a bit of a sabbatical. She comes back like a month or two, half her body weight's gone. Half of her body weight is gone. So all of these bitches on The View are going to her, Star, how'd you really lose that weight? And Star's going, diet and exercise, diet and exercise. And the story was, because I went back and looked this up at the time,
star was dying because she was convinced that joy behar and rosie o'donnell were leaking to page six that she had gastric bypass surgery and i do believe at one point it was either rosie or joy i think it was rosie who said the this lie that star jones is peddling their words not mine uh
That she lost weight this way is a bunch of horseshit, and it's a very dangerous, hypocritical message to be giving the women of America. Now, again, this is coming from people who work on The View, so, you know, pot kettle. But Starr did later admit. that she had been lying and that she did lose the weight through gastric bypass.
And this is all to say that I think we've all seen many celebrities who we all suspect are taking the jab. They won't admit it or they lie about it like Oprah did. And then they admit that they did it. I mean, my own theory is about prominent people who are taking the jab. Michelle Obama, who has suddenly lost, again, half her body weight.
Kelly Clarkson, I think has admitted it, but she had a stubborn problem for years and suddenly the pounds have fallen off. Meghan Markle. who looks like she has the metabolism of a 15-year-old suddenly after two kids and she's well into middle age. I suspect she might be on it.
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Chapter 6: What does Busy Phillips say about the morality of weight and health?
Chapter 7: How does Maureen Callahan view the self-help genre aimed at women?
And then he turns around and marries a woman half his age and starts talking publicly about how now he wants kids. Lovely. This is what Jon Hamm really thinks of women. Jon Hamm walked into that room and he couldn't believe that Jack Nicholson preferred to talk to Kathy Griffin than to talk to him.
He couldn't believe it, probably because Kathy Griffin can actually hold up her end of a conversation and has some natural wit. I think Jon Hamm's got none of those gifts. And so what does he do? He gets boozy. This is the other sort of line about Jon Hamm that's been rumored for quite a while, that he's like a mean drunk.
So he's drunk, according to Kathy Griffin, and he's leaning into her ear and insulting her. And what does he think the biggest insult he can level against her? A, her Emmy's not real. Whatever that means. Whatever, Jon Hamm. And secondly, that she's old.
that she's old are you freaking kidding me you know john ham age comes for us all and it's gonna come for you and you typically wind up with the face you deserve so enjoy being professionally handsome as long as you can because i don't think you're long for this world in terms of that stuff um great okay moving on we are going to get into our let them segment and this is one of those topics i think we're going to be revisiting quite a bit which is the sort of health and wellness and self-help
stuff that is really primarily marketed to women often by women and the latest self-help guru to captivate the nation is a woman who before landing on this a theory that she calls the let them theory which i think is ridiculous and we will discuss why uh she had like 19 failed ventures uh she somehow wound up in eight hundred thousand dollars worth of debt
She never tells us how or why I would love to know how one gets into $800,000 worth of debt. But now she thinks she's the one we should all be going to for advice. And guess who else has fallen for it? None other than your and my favorite person, Oprah Winfrey. Take a look.
let them is when you release control. Oh my goodness, it's so freeing. Yes. Yes. You don't actually think about what other people think when you're proud of yourself because you know the truth. That is so powerful. Other people never block your way. Only you can do that.
Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
Wow, that is so true. Is Oprah even present for this conversation? I feel like that's like the replicant Oprah where you push a button and you get one of her patented responses like... Wow. Or that's so true. Like, is it, is it other people never stand in your way? Yes, they do. Of course they do. We've all had people stand in our way.
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Chapter 8: What is the role of social media and celebrity culture in health and wellness trends?
And I think we can conclude safely that Mel Robbins really deserves none of your time, none of your money, and let her implement this theory in her own house, with her own family, where I truly do believe some stuff needs attending to. Love you, Sawyer. We'll be back with the deep dive on Josef. You know the secret to great days? Better nights. I sound like Meghan Markle doing that, don't I?
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Welcome back to The Nerve. Have you guys seen Lizzo recently? You know Lizzo who had been sued by like a bunch of her dancers? or terrible, what they say was abusive behavior and weight shaming, by the way, implied weight shaming. If you don't know about that, you might know Lizzo as the morbidly obese,
hip hop star who loved telling America how much she loved being morbidly obese and how that was an actual healthy, viable lifestyle. And the rest of us could take our fat phobia and shove it. One of my favorite Instagram posts of recent memory is this post Lizzo threw up on her Instagram saying how much, again, she loved being fat. She loved it. Look at those roles.
Look at the amount of weight she is. And this is somebody who performs for a living. Like when you're performing for two hours a night on a live stage, you have to have a ton of energy and athleticism and discipline. Can you like work on the treadmill? Can you like work out on the treadmill while singing and dancing? Like it's, you are an athlete.
one would think anyway we heard a lot from lizzo about how much she loved being fat and now lizzo has suddenly dropped half her body weight it's gone and guess how she's telling us she did it Diet and exercise. And if you believe that, I know you don't believe that. I don't believe that. This reminded me of who I will call patient zero in this story. And I believe it's Star Jones who
Audience members of a certain age will remember this. She was on The View. She was morbidly obese. She married a man of dubious heterosexuality. She used The View as a pump and dump to get sponsors for her wedding. This was an incredible era in The View. It really, really was. It was really fun to watch. Rosie O'Donnell, who we're going to be talking about later, was the lead host at the time.
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