Fitness star Jillian Michaels discusses her journey from fitness icon to cultural critic. She describes what happened when she questioned left-wing dogma and advocated for free speech, while addressing controversial topics like health politics and transgender issues. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Morning Wire
Jillian Michaels on Hollywood, Wokeness, and Her Wake-Up Moment | 8.4.24
(upbeat music) Joining the fight for free speech from the left, fitness star, Jillian Michaels, has made waves recently for questioning progressive dogma. In this episode, she joins us to talk about her big wake-up moment, what Hollywood stars really think about wokeness, and her honest thoughts about the LGBT movement. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief, John Bickley. It's August 4th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. (upbeat music) Since 1974, Saudi Arabia has sold oil solely in US dollars, which was paramount to the dollar's strength and stability, but not anymore. That's why you gotta get in touch with the experts over at Birch Gold today. Right now, qualifying purchases will get you a one-of-a-kind limited edition golden truth bomb. The only way to claim your eligibility though is by texting wire to 989898. Text wire to 9898 for a free, no obligation info kit on gold, and to get your hands on that limited edition golden truth bomb today. (upbeat music) Joining us this morning is fitness and entertainment legend, host of the Keeping It Real podcast, and now recently cultural critic, Jillian Michaels. Jillian, I'm Starstruck. Thanks so much for coming on. Oh my gosh, you're so kind. Thank you for having me. So you've been a household name for years, most famously from The Biggest Loser, which I'll just note. I have wonderful memories of watching marathons of that. Oh. (laughs) Thank you. But over the past few years, you've been a little more willing to speak out on some issues that are verboten in Hollywood. It takes a lot of courage to do that, especially, you know, you have a lot to lose professionally. What made you decide to do that? Or was it a conscious decision? To be honest with you, it wasn't. I think that health has suddenly become a political football, which is ridiculous and unfortunate, but nevertheless, the less is the case. And this first came about back in 2019, when I was asked if I celebrated the fact that Elizabeth was obese. And I was, I can't even understand what this is. I laugh at it now, I can't find the words because I didn't even understand why this would be a dangerous topic of conversation. And I said, I think she's fantastic. I think she's a brilliant artist. If you're asking me whether or not I celebrate her being overweight, of course I don't, because it's dangerous. And I wanted to live as long as possible because I think she's a brilliant talent. And when that turned into Jillian Michaels as a fat shamer, that's when I knew I was living in a parallel universe. And from that point on, things in health have become more taboo, which is my direct wheelhouse. So yes, it is scary and I take a deep breath now every time I open my mouth. But one of the reasons it's so great to be working with Bill Maher is because his goal is to empower his hosts to speak their truth as fearlessly as possible and seek out thoughtful, evolved conversations that are diverse with regard to points of view and in a manner that's tolerant and empathetic. So I don't know how to do it any other way, but luckily having the Club Random Studios team behind me, I feel a bit more confident if that makes sense. - Well, I'm gonna ask you about your podcast, but it's so funny, I have written in my notes, what was the tipping point for you in parentheses? Was it the lizzo thing? - Yes, it was. - For listeners who didn't follow that debacle, here's some audio of Jillian's infamous comments about lizzo and the subsequent backlash. - Why are we celebrating her body? Why does it matter? That's what I'm saying. Like, why aren't we celebrating her music? 'Cause it isn't gonna be awesome if she gets diabetes. - So, ladies, does she have the right to question Lizzo's body and her lifestyle? - She still got the right to talk like that. She was just talking real loose mouth in a way that is just unacceptable. Like, I don't know who you, I don't know. - I think it's actually shocking that coming from someone who does this for a living who is a fitness expert doesn't recognize that your health is not determined by your weight, right? So, I think we should start there. - I remember when that went down and I thought the mob is going for Jillian and that's the best way for people to see it. When the mob comes for them, they can't not see it. - That's how I saw it. And you know, what's interesting is that my wife is a conservative and I grew up in California. I was always historically a, quote, classic liberal. And I do wanna make that differentiation between woke and liberal. Because for me, what liberal meant was live and let live. That's what it means to me. And my wife and I would get in these huge fights when we first met, which was back in 2018. And she's like, you know, you think that you're so accepting. You guys are the most judgmental. And I was like, this is ridiculous. We're the most accepting. And then I started to notice friends of mine that were saying, oh, you know, well, I found out they voted for Trump and I had to just, I could never speak to them again. And I couldn't believe it. And the world began to become divided at an exponential pace. From that point forward, really to me, in that 2019 world and the lizard moment really crystallized the madness of it all. So you're absolutely right, that really was, it was a combination of arguing with my wife and then seeing it in real time on social media, the lack of tolerance for differing political parties. I see it on both sides. You know, it's so interesting because people on the right, I'm not right enough. So I'm a quote, libtard. And people on the left, I'm not left enough. So I'm Maga, and I'm like, what if I'm just me? - Right. - And what if I'm cool with you just being you, which I am? But you're absolutely right, that was the beginning where I was shocked and I still am. I still actually can't find the words, I don't get it. - So that's your villain origin story. Now, tell us about the podcast you're doing. - Well, for years I've been doing a podcast, but it's audio only and it's been predominantly health-based where I've interviewed some of the leading medical experts and medical researchers globally in all subspecialties of medicine. So then I go on club random back in January and I get to know a few spirited conversations with Bill. So I'm involving a Bill Mark, some involving Gavin Newsom amongst other things. And he invites me to come on to real time and HBO and we discuss Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. And essentially, he wanted me to be fearless in my discussions on these topics, which really expand into things like the transgender athlete debate, gender affirming care, our kids' vaccine schedule, hormone replacement therapy. A lot of these topics that are highly controversial, he's like, I wanna give you a platform to explore all of these things where you can't be canceled. And that's how this began. So I moved my podcast over to his shingle, his entire team with Chris Case and Chuck Labella, essentially built a studio for myself and other hosts like Sage Steel, put a whole team around us and they're shooting actual talk shows with people that we wanna speak to. We all have our different wheelhouses, but I'm talking to investigative journalists. I'm still talking to MDs and PhDs about the latest medical research on some of the most controversial topics and things that just touch your everyday life, like dispelling ridiculous health myths on TikTok, for example, but we're talking to thought leaders like Cara Swisher and we're discussing everything from whether or not AI can cure cancer to her chastising me for being a bad gay, which was a very interesting conversation. I disagreed. You know, I'll let the audience decide for themselves. So that's really what happened is he reinforced my ability to be brave and he put it all on video and he facilitated my ability to expand the conversation from just physical health to all areas of wellness, like parenting and career and mental wellbeing on top of physical health. - Well, you know, God bless people like Bill Maher who are challenging the mainstream and creating platforms like this. - Agreed. - Speaking of the mainstream, you may have a unique view into some of the mood in Hollywood. With regards to wokeness, do you sense there's a lot of quiet uneasiness or are your peers mostly true believers? What's your experience? - There's definitely a mix of that. I have a lot of friends who are pro-coma-la and I have a lot of friends who aren't. And by the way, whenever I'm in LA, I experience that. I live in Miami a little bit less in Miami and I also have a little place in Wyoming and a little bit less in Wyoming. So it does depend on where I'm spending time, but I do work with a lot of people in Los Angeles still. And it's very interesting because more of the men feel that they are gagged, if you will, really incapable of voicing their concerns about the direction certain things are going, especially in wellness because there was a show idea that one group of producers had wanted to take out involving weight loss and the discussion around it was fascinating. It's like, we can't take this out right now. Nobody can do a show about weight loss. Dear God, how will we market this? And I just thought this is absurd. But in the meantime, we can talk about weight loss as long as we make the end user a victim and a patient for GLP-1 drugs. That's the fantastic, hilarious, drugs deposition of this is that you're healthy at any size until big pharma turns around and says, actually you're a victim of a brain disease and you need this drug. Like the hypocrisy in some of this messaging is ridiculous. - Have you had any famous peers reach out to you privately to share their thoughts since you started becoming more public about this stuff? - Oh, of course, behind closed doors. People are like, totally agree with you. Okay, I was so glad you said that. Thank God you said something. That's what's so insane to me is that we've got extremes on both sides and the tail is wagging the dog and common sense is literally being canceled. So the fear shut down that open dialogue and I'll never forget I interviewed Gadsad on the podcast. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He wrote a brilliant book called The Parasitic Mind. He's not rogue in a ton. And he said to me, gosh, I wanna say a couple years ago, you have an obligation to say something. You have no idea how fragile democracy actually is. And if you don't meet that responsibility, we will all pay for it individually and as a society. And then he gave me some tips. He said, listen, where you're an expert, you're standing on solid ground. Take a stand. So I'm an expert in health. I'm gonna take a stand here. 'Cause there's some cover, if you will, when you are an expert. I can't give you a conversation about the war in Russia and Ukraine. I know nothing about geopolitics. I may have an opinion, but who the FMI to discuss it, right? I don't know, I can't speak to it. Privately, we could go to dinner and I could tell you what concerns me and what I don't understand. But with health, this is my area of expertise. I can put on my expert hat and take all of your bullets. And I'm relatively steel man in my argument. So people who are experts in their area have an obligation to speak out. - Now, speaking of areas you're qualified to speak on, as a gay woman, you also have a bit of cover to publicly question some elements of the LGBT movement and you have been recently. - Right, you're absolutely, by the way, you're right, which is one of the reasons I am, because I fall under that acronym for whatever the hell that means. 'Cause the acronym makes no sense to me. I can't stand anything divisive and the only people not in the acronym are heterosexual people. So on to itself, it's biased. However, if we're going to use it for good, then it allows me, as a member of that community, to call out some things that people who aren't a member of that community might take more heat for. - Well, I know you've commented publicly on some of the things like transgender medical treatments for kids, is that specifically what you're getting at? - I'm getting two different pieces of it and I wanna be clear, I have zero issue with people being transgender. This is the liberal part, right? If you're an adult, and this is the choice you make for yourself, go with God. I think that's wonderful, I hope you're happy. That's all I care about. I don't care what God you pray to. I don't care who you vote for. I don't care who you love. It's your body, you do what you want. If it makes you happy, God bless, right? And please afford me the same respect. However, where this becomes not black and white and extraordinarily nuanced is we get into the transgender athlete debate because it's affecting biological females and we have no choice but to look at the data that's out there and ask ourselves, okay, where is there a disadvantage? I appreciate equality just as much as everybody else, but I also appreciate a level playing field in sports and these two things are in direct opposition there. So I do understand it's nuanced. I do think a draconian ban is unfair. I would ask people on the right to have a bit more empathy towards the situation and a bit more tolerance 'cause I think then we can begin a conversation, get out of your predator in the bathroom, talk, that's not helping anybody. So where I think we need to begin on that one is to look at the data of which there's a robust amount that I've reviewed, that nauseum and say, okay, listen, what are the advantages? What is the data show? What are our solutions? And you go case by case because boxing is going to be very different than swimming, right? Dance is going to be very different than endurance running, is it a handicap, is it a third league? But we have to come to this without the people on one side saying, this is absurd, transgender women are women, okay, we can't stop, we can't debate the XXXY chromosome debate that you may as well be a flat earther. And on the right, I would ask for a bit more empathy and a bit more tolerance and a bit more understanding if we can bring both of those mindsets to the table, I think we can start to make some progress here because if we don't, the truth of the matter is, a woman in the wrong sport could get seriously hurt, seriously hurt, like boxing, for example. So when you switch over to something like gender affirming care, this is not nuanced for me. And I admit I have an opinion, I've formed this opinion after reading Abigail Schreier's book, irreversible damage, then I reviewed the CAS review, which is a systematic review of every single study in gender affirming care by one of the United Kingdom's top pediatricians. She was tapped by the NHS, literally one of the most respected pediatricians, and it's 388 pages, it took her four years. And she put forward this report and she outlines all of the concerns with gender affirming care. And she says, listen, there are a few cases where this has been helpful, but the majority is rife with deep worry. And it's everything from over medicalization. And what I mean by that is a child can show up and be autistic, a child can show up and have been incest or molested. There could be a host of reasons the child is presenting in the way that they are meaning gender dysphoria. And after two visits, it's like, okay, off to the endocrinologist, and they're not getting treated for underlying issues where they may need very serious help. You are, in fact, interrupting puberty, which is the stage of life where your brain is developing, your bones are developing, your organs are developing, we're sterilizing these kids. So you can take a 14 year old and tell them they're never gonna have kids. Well, at 14, I didn't want kids. Now I'm 50, and I have two of those savages that run my life. I'm fine with adopting. A lot of people don't want to adopt. They want their own kids. There's nothing wrong with that. But a 14 year old can't comprehend that. These kids can't have orgasms. Does a child understand what this means? I don't think so. Their teeth are cracking. They've got back problems. Their bones are brittle. Like it's very serious. And I haven't even touched upon the host of other issues that she outlines here. And by the way, if we look at people as far right as it goes, if you were to look at somebody like Charlie Kirk, even Charlie Kirk says, I'm just talking about transitioning children. Adults can go with God. So the reason for that is an adult's brain is developed and adults' bones are developed. And while the counter argument is, the whole point is not enduring purity in the, quote, wrong body, I'm sorry to say I think your brain development is more important. And in the cast review, she also points out that gender affirming care didn't actually resolve the angst and the mental anguish that these kids are struggling with in the vast majority of kids. So all of a sudden Britain pulls back, right? Finland pulls back, Sweden pulls back, France pulls back. And these are very liberal countries. And what do we do in America? We doubled down. And then you had the Biden administration put out, an article came out, I don't know what it was, essentially that they were seeking to remove all limitations on age to gender affirming care. And I just thought, this surely this is madness, how have you gotten here? And when the cast review is being critiqued, the organization that's being cited, I would say 99 times out of 100, not even nine times out of 10, is the W path. So the W path considers themself and is often cited by the way as the global authority on transgender care. So it stands for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Now, Michael Schullenberger and Mia Hughes then come out with the W path files, which has an internal whistleblower leak, the texts, the emails, the Zoom calls. They go to show you, these guys are kind of making this up as they go along. Read it for yourself and see where you net out on it. I can tell you, for me, it's unbelievably disturbing. So based on those three things, so you've got a irreversible damage, then you have the cast review, then you have the W path files, I think that this should be a non-starter for children. That said, I want to be clear, I do believe outside of Big Pharma, by the way, because it's a multi-billion dollar business for Big Pharma. Outside of Big Pharma, I believe that everybody on both sides of this debate does have the best intention for kids. So people on one side of it are like, but this is a life-saving therapy and they just think you must be transphobic, right? Why would you deny a child? Why would you make them go through this? What's wrong with you? And if Elon Musk can fall for that, by the way, anybody can. And then on the opposite side, they're looking at all the things that I'm talking to you about. So I am horrified by what these kids go through in regard to their physical health. I'm not horrified by the fact that they're potentially transgender. If they grow up and they've gotten all the professional care that they need, and this is the choice they make for themselves, then God bless, I have transgender friends. So I really think how we come to this conversation is critical because the conversation needs to be had. - All right, well, Gillian, thank you so much for making time to come on with us and for not being afraid of being part of a Daily Wire show. - Oh my God, I'll be honest, I listen to Daily Wire all the time. I'm constantly trying to learn new things and expose myself to differing points of view. I really respect the hell out of you guys and all you're doing and how intelligent you are and for having me on. 'Cause I'm not all the way kind of entrenched on one side. So the fact that you would have this conversation with me and be open to the dialogue, I really respect it. And I think that's what we need to go forward as a society is to engage in these conversations with each other even in the moments where we don't agree, especially in those moments. - All right, well, Gillian, thank you so much for coming on and best of luck with your podcast. I'm gonna tune in. - Thank you so much, I appreciate your time. - That was Gillian Michaels, fitness icon and host of the Keeping It Real podcast. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. (upbeat music) (clicking)