Unashamed with the Robertson Family
Ep 1024 | Willie Embraced His Diva Tendencies During ‘Duck Dynasty’ & Jase Has a ‘Joe Rogan Experience’
Thu, 16 Jan 2025
Al spills the beans on Willie’s behind-the-scenes diva behavior from the “Duck Dynasty” set, and Jase’s eccentric behavior makes him seem more like his namesake Uncle Si everyday. Zach opens up about his faith crisis as a young adult and the study that helped him overcome his doubts. Jase listens to a podcast for the first time, but it wasn’t his own! Al’s trip down memory lane shows the real reason Jase didn’t last long in professional ministry. — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What behind-the-scenes diva behavior did Willie display on 'Duck Dynasty'?
I am unashamed. What about you?
So welcome to Unashamed. We've already started arguing. Zach, welcome into the Unashamed duck call room. Yeah.
Is this your first time in the duck call room?
It's my first time recording in the duck call room.
Oh, you were here.
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Chapter 2: Why did Jase compare himself to Joe Rogan?
We were in here when we did Shane and Shane that time. Yeah, but it was a different setup. Yeah, it was kind of like a six-person. It looked totally different. It had a round table. This is like... No, I sat here at that table when the power went out. That's the first time I did an ad read and that you and Phil...
Oh, I wasn't here. And that's when Jace told me that Zach all of a sudden turned into a car salesman. Yeah, that was the worst.
That was one of the funniest memories of my life. When we get to the afterlife, because I think there's going to be a replaying session. Just everybody gathered up, thousands of people. Do we have edit control on the playing back? I'm going to leave that to the Lord God. I've got better at it there. I've got a pretty good editor, Matty. Because I've got about 10 arguments going.
that basically have resulted in, we will not know until the afterlife and we have some kind of replay, heavenly replay system. And so I'm looking forward to it because my wife and I have about five of those because we just can't, she remembers something differently. than I do, and we're 100%, 100% adamant that the recollection that we each have is correct.
Well, here's the thing, James. When I was younger, I was the same way. Oh, I was still the same way, but when I was younger, I was right a lot more. As I've gotten older, I'm still locked in that I'm right, but I find out later, nope, you're wrong.
Well, that's why these politicians will say something, and they'll go back and figure out that they... Whatever they said never really happened. But I'm not real hard on them because I'm like, if the story gets tweaked a little bit and a little bit and you keep repeating it.
Especially in our family.
Oh, my gosh. I mean, we start embellishing off the top. Who knows what's true anymore? We're serial embellishers. We've been that way. I'm like Pilot at this point. I mean, what is truth? I mean, I can't. The line is so blurry, at least with the stories that we've told and retold.
primarily coming from two people i think there's two people in our family that struggle with embellishment more than the rest of us yeah they're both named silas yeah two people in our family i'm i'm i'm i got nothing on that by the way it's three because you just had to spend enough time around the third silas but he's the exact same way really yeah especially when he was a kid are y'all talking about me
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Chapter 3: What was Zach's faith crisis and how did he overcome it?
Well, some of the worst memories I have are 24 hour road trips too.
As long as I'm in control of my own destiny. When you're at the mercy of the airlines, I'd rather be, if I'm going to be stuck, I mean, at least I'm in control. I'm driving my truck. I feel like we've had a breakthrough here. That's it. But anyways, I saw a herd of deer from all the way from, I would say, all the way from, you get over the Mississippi River, and it's about, what, 67 miles.
Is it 67 miles? Yeah, from the Mississippi River to here. Yeah, and I mean- I mean, I've never seen, I mean, it was late at night, but I mean, you want to talk about the deer. That's when they all run around. I am. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.
So Zach rolled in. I was trying to wait up for you, Zach. Your son-in-law beat you here. And Dawson, who's a really good guy. The Lord blessed you with favor with that one. Very good. Layla's husband. And they just celebrated their one year anniversary. So we were talking about marriage and and things such as that. And so I was going to wait up for Zach. He was supposed to be in about 10.30.
So I gave him until 10.40, you know, the Ryerson way. I gave him 10 minutes. I looked over at Dawson and said, you know when your pa and la was getting here? He said, well, he said about 10.30 or so. I said, well, I'm going to bed. I'm sleepy. And so I don't know. When did you get in? I got in about 11.45.
Yeah. See, Al, I may be a notorious embellisher, but Zach is notorious for being late. That may be true. He learned that from me. Maybe. He learned that from our brother, Willie, who's also. He's also that way. So. Yeah. It's kind of their way. Willie's early if he's two minutes late. He told me that one time. Yeah. He said, no, I read it online.
If you're two minutes late, that's the perfect time to be there.
Well, back when we were doing the little duck show, Willie was, he showed up pretty close on time at first. to call times, and then he figured out pretty quick all they did was make him wait. So he thought, no, you're not getting me on that one. They just want you around, you know.
I was saying, well, I used to always be punctual because, I mean, Phil was real adamant about. And he still did it on the show. He and Cy would come and sit around. But the TV show made, they just could not be on time.
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Chapter 4: What funny memories do the hosts share about family dynamics?
And I said, well, great, because we had talked a little bit back at Thanksgiving. Some of my other cousins got baptized. And so I think he's been thinking about it. And so this morning, before I came here, I met him down at the church building. it was really interesting conversation.
Cause you know, I always prey on how to explain this to someone young, because I think people kind of know I need to do it, but sometimes understand the why of it, you know? And so you don't go into a full blown thing, but you kind of want them to understand what this moment is about.
And I kept having this thought about family, you know, because obviously he's our cousin and just a good young man, a believer, loves the Lord. And he's just ready to make that all in commitment. And so, and today did that. But he said something really intriguing to me because I was telling the story about how we were doing this. And, you know, places don't matter. The water doesn't matter.
None of that stuff matters. But sometimes it matters because it has an attachment to it. So today it happened to be a place where I spent most of my life at WFR at the building. And I was telling the story about because he was real close to Harold, his grandpa, our uncle. And I always had an interesting relationship with Harold because I was the oldest.
I don't know, Jace, if you remember this, but we were living in Farmville. Well, he would have us come over, and I was probably about 10, 9 or 10, and he would just work me the whole time. He had two daughters, and so there were certain things they couldn't do very well, I guess, hauling firewood. Did he pay you? No. And that was the thing.
I was like, I wanted to tell him, you know, how they freed the slaves in the Hebrew days back in Exodus, you know. And yet that's what he kind of had me. But it was because I was a little boy. And so I always kind of thought, man, this guy. But at the same time, I knew he like he really liked me. And that was kind of his way of showing it. And so all these years it was that kind of relationship.
He helped. Jace and I, we fell in love with LSU probably because of him and Judy, my aunt. But he stopped by one day after Jace and I were interns at the church. And he came up the back stairs. And back then we were all sharing an office. I don't know if he talked to you or not, but he talked to me. And he had tears in his eyes. And he said, I just want you and Jace to know something.
You know, I am so proud of y'all. because I've always wanted to do ministry, and I wanted to go to school, and I wanted to preach, and life just didn't take me that direction, but I've always had that desire. And now to see my nephews getting trained, and he didn't know what was gonna happen with us. He had tears in his eyes, and I'd never seen him teared up before in my whole life.
And so I was telling Casey that story this morning because I'd never told him that. And I said, here, 30 years later, we're, you know, 30 feet away from where that same conversation happened. And so I said, now here you are making a life decision. And he said what you want young people to say. He said, well, you know –
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Chapter 5: How do the hosts feel about family accountability and discipline?
Oh, really? I didn't know that.
Brutal. He was scary. Well, let me tell you, this was a... He scared me.
I don't remember any weapons.
I'll just leave it there. I mean, I think if like... There's a statute of limitations. If I would have called 911, he probably would have gone to jail for a short period of time. It was brutal. He's crossed over now. What did you do to receive the... You're so nosy. You want me to share my skeletons. Here's what I did. I'll have to do this so we don't offend the listeners.
So there we are, me and his two daughters, and someone else was part of the game. Willie seemed like he'd have been a little young, but maybe it was. Maybe he was part of the game. I'm not sure who the fourth person was. Well, I think we were a little older than that.
So this may have been later. It was at his house. Okay. But we used to do like some Thanksgiving and Christmas up there.
So yesterday I go to the store in my pajamas. I come home and Missy's like, why would you go to the store in your pajamas? And I said, I wanted to be comfortable. I was wearing Cozy Earth, which you gave me for Christmas. That's right.
Don't give a gift and start crying about it. I'm almost tempted to put up a picture of me and Al in our pajamas when we both walked in the same room with the same exact cozy earth pajama set on. Because I want to put the caption, who wore it better? Al, who would you say wore it better?
Well, of course it's me. But it was really interesting because you rarely see two adult men walk into a room wearing the exact same thing. It was awkward, but I will say this.
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Chapter 6: What humorous stories do the hosts share about their childhood?
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I want to think it was Willie because this was the beginnings of his Scrabble prowess. We were playing Scrabble, so we'd had to been older than that.
I would have been like early teens, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it didn't seem like we were that old, but somewhere in there, somewhere between, you know, six and 13. Well, I made a word on the Scrabble. that was a triple word score. They said, that's inappropriate. They didn't say inappropriate, but that's a bad word. I did not think it was a bad word. And I said, look it up.
And then I gave a Phil Robertson description of the word that I had used. It was a slang word for part of the anatomy. So they went and got... Their dad, Uncle Harold, and he just saw that word on the Scrabble board. And the next thing I know, it was just I was twirling around his one arm. And every time I would stop, leather was being applied. And I just thought, that's a word. That is a word.
Was it the syllabic beating that we talked about on the previous podcast?
Was he giving you the commentary while he was running you in the center?
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Chapter 7: What are the hosts' thoughts on ministry and leadership changes?
Your brain under a brain scan, it looks different because of that moment right there.
Yeah, it was pretty traumatic. But, you know, back then. Back then, you know, part of it. The whole family. I mean, I got whipped by my grandparents, by most of my uncles. Which is pretty crazy.
Yeah, you'd never see that much anymore. No. But at the same time, boy, you had a lot of accountability. Oh, my gosh.
Roaming around.
Too much accountability. Paul would tell us, he'd say, no, boy, don't make me come over there and thump that gourd. Yeah. And he'd thump you in the back of the head. Yeah.
Well, I guess we turned out all right. I'm not endorsing that, but it was pretty brutal. It was a rough memory.
I've never heard that story before.
Oh, yeah.
That's the beautiful thing about a podcast is you start telling stories. I was like, I've never heard that one before.
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Chapter 8: How does Cozy Earth contribute to the hosts' comfort?
Because I remember I gave this big speech one time in a meeting about it's not about this building because I was still bitter that they're making me.
Yeah.
punch a clock when I just technically I was doing the Lord's work all night I'm tired I'm sleepy I don't want to come to the building So one of the elders was like, well, I mean, what is your – he was kind of asking, like, where are you at on the use of a building? Because you seem to be attacking everything about the building. And I said, burn it. Were you a shock jock?
I don't know where you got that from. But – I mean, that just didn't go over well. That was then a meeting after the meeting of that is just crazy talk. You know, what are you talking about? So you were going to get fired if you didn't. I was never going to make it in that city.
Your time there was limited.
Yeah, Jace lacked the diplomacy necessary. No diplomacy.
But you were great at that. Oh, I was good at it.
That's why you're. It actually helped me. Jace helped me to be even more. when I needed to be. But I was in the same place Chase was. In fact, when I later became the main pastor, I guess, I hate to even call it that, but whenever I preached and was leading the whole church, I told all our employees, I was like, if this building catches on fire, and you call the fire department, you're fired.
So along with the firing of the building, if they come and put it out, you're fired. Because this thing is a – I mean, you're talking about a money pit. Oh, yeah. A building like ours is 60 years old. We put so much money into it that, I mean, the only really way to solve it is burn it down. But, I mean, I know you can't do that. That's a crime. No one burned the building down.
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