The Dark Side of Nostalgia: Baywatch's Impact on Us | Matthew Felker & Jeremy Jackson DSH #781
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in order to be seen as a commodity or worth worthy and worth something you're trying to people please basically oh yeah you're still doing that i mean you go actually out of your way i actually get upset with you sometimes because you actually do too much for people people that aren't really worth your time but he is really willing to do every and anything you ask but you need to be more sort of structured on who you give your time to i think

All right, guys. Baywatch is back. We got Jeremy Jackson and Matt Felker here today. Thanks for coming on, gentlemen. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it. How'd the new series go? I know it took a while. It was long. We started in 2019. Five years, dude. Pre-pandemic, Jeremy was our first interview. And he really brought it. We filmed about 10, 15 people back to back to back to back.

And everyone's interviews were really bad. Really? And we watched playback and my wife actually, who's about 12 years younger than me, she's pretty funny. She's like, this is fucking terrible. And I got super offended by it. But Jeremy actually was good. He was the only one that was like kind of off the cuff and open and had some stuff to say. He had his...

I mean, the panty sniffer comment, that was like three minutes out of the gate. Was that our first interview? That was literally three minutes out of the gate. I mean, one of my catchphrases is you are only as sick as your secrets. So just let it all out. Just let it all out, dude. If you can't take me at my worst, you can't have me at my best. I feel that. But how, remember I told you, I literally clipped it. I go, that's going to go viral. That's going to go viral. Five years ago, I go, that's the one. You're not going to use that. I go, absolutely not.

But I think out of context because everyone's like, ew, he's so fucking gross. What's wrong with him? What a pervert. He was fucking 12. Yeah. He's 12 years old. If you're 12 years old and you have Pamela Anderson running around you half naked all day long, you're probably going to smell her swimsuit or do something with the swimsuit. When you're a little kid, you want to see what your parents are doing. Explain to being a little kid on a set. An ounce of...

Prevention is better than a pound of cure. I'd rather be 44 years old today looking back and go, I'm so grateful I went into every trailer, sifted through everybody's stuff, looked at all the girls' Playboy magazines naked while I smelled their panties, dude. Like, I was ragingly hormonal. They would all flirt with me. They would, like, show me their tit and, like, a little bit of beaver. Wow. And I'm, like, 12, 13, 14, 15 going, like, huh.

please, you know? Yeah. So I was like, just run into the trailer room. I'm going to get the goods, man. And you're a kid. You want to know what's going on, you know, snaking David Hasselhoff's trailer. What's he hiding? What's he doing? You know, I, I, I thought it was normal for everybody to have diarrhea every day. He's always had diarrhea in his toilet. Um,

Luckily, he's sober now like me, so probably is having nice hard shits. Finally. Which is good. But yeah, dude, I just went in and sniffed around, went through their cupboards, went through their clothes. And looking back, I'm glad I did it. You explored, yeah. But what is that? I mean, we kind of explored in the documentary, but we had so much shit to go through, we didn't really go into it. Like just going through puberty...

as a kid on a show with what were like the most beautiful women in the world at the time, or at least we- Because it was the hottest show at the time. Yeah, and those were literally handpicked like the most beautiful women. Like what is being 11, 12 years old, you're getting your first little pubby. Like what is that like? I mean, you know, it-

brands into your cellular matrix what it is to be cool, what is hot. I actually like chicks with hair in their armpits and supernatural that don't wear makeup. My style now is totally twisted because what was hot back then is just like...

Normal. Think about just society. We're in this zone where the Kardashian body, J-Lo, that kind of thing is what's beautiful to society type thing. The Baywatch era was kind of what was beauty to society. Does that fuck you up?

As an adult? Like what you're choosing in partners or what you're... For years it warped me. I chased an illusion. I chased a fantasy, trying to recreate in my private life, personal life, what was seen as necessary and or normal to be successful. You got to have abs. You got to be super tan. And you got to have a blonde chick with big boobs. Were the bolt-ons a necessity in dating? I actually...

It's weird because I just kept attracting that. It isn't even what I liked really, but I just attracted that and only that, hence my ex-wife, you know? And the outside...

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The outside world is a projection of your inside world, right? So inside, I believe that you must have this thing and be this thing and do this stuff in order to be seen as a commodity or worthy and worth something, right? So I just kept trying to regenerate that. And that's a self-defeating prophecy. That's a dead end road. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to people please basically. Oh, yeah. You're still doing that.

I think it's human nature, right? We all are in some way, shape, or form. To survive, you know, fit in. I mean, you go actually out of your way. I actually get upset with you sometimes because you actually do too much for people, people that aren't really worth your time. Wow. And I feel like you over, I mean, this guy would do anything for you. Like, hey, Jeremy, we need you. We're doing the premiere. Oh, I'm going to be in Costa Rica. I'll just fly back tomorrow. I'll pay for it. Don't worry. I'll be there. It's like, no, no, Jeremy, let them pay for it. Let them do it. But he is really willing to do every and anything for you.

You ask, but you need to be more sort of structured on who you give your time to, I think. I mean, you give it to me all day long. You're very helpful. Yeah. Everyone else. But also, you know, thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate you. And I do that for you out of respect because, I mean, this guy came out of his own pocket, $4 million. Wow. He had a project that he believed in. He had a vision. He had passion. And nobody else saw it. I think Jeremy is the only person that actually believed that. Got it. Really? I mean...

I used to get calls from when I was trying to deal with David Hasselhoff, he used to get calls from his publicist who kind of runs him, this woman, Judy. Every time I would call her, oh, you're still doing that little Baywatch project. How's that going? Are you ever going to finish it? And I would just get belittled every time. And it was just like, wow, I don't think anyone thinks we're going to finish this. And it's partially because... Let alone be on Hulu with record-breaking views of 30 million. We've got a lot of numbers. Wow. The...

I think the difference is the people in the documentary space now are big filmmakers. Like five, 10 years ago, you could do like what I did. Netflix would buy it. They were acquiring a lot of stuff. It's just, I mean, it's like Skydance now. It's doing the documentaries. Like the deal they did before me was Ridley Scott. And then Ron Howard's doing the one right after him. These are like, how do you compete with that? And even, I don't, I don't think,

I'm like a bad barometer for filmmakers. What I did was nearly impossible and I got lucky on top of it. Wow. I got one deal and I took it. I called CAA and they're like, don't walk, run. Like nobody's getting deals right now. You need to take that deal. And I mean, I've been in LA for 24 years.

I've done a lot of things that are failures, but I've also made a lot of relationships with people. And I used every single relationship on this product. The reason we got a distribution deal. So not only did I, we were supposed to start as a 90 minute movie and we're going to go to like Sundance, Telluride, you know, cute little film. Maybe we'll get picked up. Maybe we'll get distribution. And we just started filming so much. I'm like, there's no way we're doing 90 minutes. We're going to do at least four, maybe six episodes, whatever. So,

What your budget is, which is you have to even to do a 90 minute documentary on it, you're seven figures. You cannot even you're not even in the playing field. Maybe Vice or any of these like bullshit that's like one hundred fifty thousand bucks, whatever. But those are like one off specials. It's like a controlled studio. You're not doing locations. You're not traveling. It's very quick in and out. And so we had one budget and now we have four episodes. So now that's four times your budget.

So it's sort of like you really believe in yourself. It's like, well, fuck it. I'm betting on myself. And if I fail and if I lose, it's on me. But just with our deal, so the only reason we got the deal is because this – no one – we talked about this off camera. No one gets paid usually for documentaries. It's used as promotional purposes.

Some streamers, I think Netflix allows small pay. Normally they structure it as the producer, not as the actual talent. But HBO, ABC News Studios, Hulu, they won't acquire something if you pay the talent. And why is that?

It's not objective journalism. And it also comes from non-union to union. So the actual pay is different. Then you have to be part of the guild and all that kind of stuff. So it becomes a totally different product. And then it's actually seen as almost reality TV where you can, hey, Jeremy, here's $10,000 to show up on camera. It's a hyper-documentation. I know you don't have any problem with David Hasselhoff, but you talk shit about David Hasselhoff because I really need this right here because you're paying the talent. Yeah.

But I had done a documentary with a filmmaker friend of mine called The American Meme on Netflix about social media. And I was kind of like anti-social media. When a vehicle is certified by Volvo, it's much more than a certified pre-owned. It's certified for that road trip you've been meaning to take. Certified for your growing family.

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Along with like people that really leaned into it, like the fat Jew and DJ Cal and I think Haley Bieber and stuff was in it. And this woman from ABC news studios had seen it. And she called me during the pandemic. She's like, Hey, I saw you in this, in this thing. Would you be willing to do like a 2020 special? Just same kind of premise. You're kind of good in that space. Talk about pop culture, whatever. I said, sure.

And at the time I started filming Baywatch, we were paused for COVID. So we didn't really know what to do or how to like remote shoot yet type thing. But I had, we bought all the cameras. We own cameras, we own lighting, we own sound. So I did her interview remote, shot it on red cameras and just sent her a hard drive. Like, you know, it's a $5,000 shoot, just free of charge. Just sent it to her. Like, here you go.

Ended up using it. Did this 2020. She's like, how did you do that? I'm like, I'm doing this like Baywatch thing. It's like, you know, taking forever, have all the equipment. And she kind of like put that in her head.

Well, fast forward four years later, the strike starts. She's like, hey, we got a spot for August 28th. We need content for where are you at with that? I'm like, I got four episodes. Here you go. And she watched it and she's like, this looks really expensive. We don't think we can afford this with just ABC News Studios. Let me try to walk it up the chain to Hulu, which has a bigger budget. They're all owned by Disney. So Disney Plus has the biggest budget. Hulu's got the second. ABC News Studios is the smallest. They own ESPN, that kind of thing, too. Yeah.

So they walked up the food chain. They got us more money. I still took a loss, but it didn't matter. I didn't. If anyone goes into the documentary film space thinking they're going to make a bunch of money, you're in the wrong fucking space. You're just there's there is no money left anymore. The only way there's money left is if you skim off the product and you put it in your pockets and we put all the money on the screen. Hmm.

I mean, the theme song was $50,000 a use front and back. Holy crap. Um,

And I read some review on Reddit. Some fucking dickhead is like, I can't believe they didn't use the real song and they re-sung it. I'm like, yeah, dude, that's like $3 million. Who re-sung it? Scott Grimes and Debbie Gibson. So we got Scott who does all the voices for Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane who has this incredible voice and he can do any voice possible. So he sang it for us. He brought in Debbie Gibson. You're way too young to know who she is. I'm almost too young to know who she is. Pop icon, 80s, new kids in the black 90s. Never heard of her. She was like the...

Sorry, Debbie. She was like the Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera of the 80s type thing. So anyways, it fit in our...

time frame type thing so all these people came great singer too and did favors because they believed in the product Jeremy got us locations I think they believed in you bro nice you know I don't know I don't know what I think as the ball got rolling I feel they believed in me a little bit but I think everyone was like who's this fucking clown fucking guy was in Britney Spears video what is this guy yeah you had a chip on your shoulder yeah and I think for me it was it wasn't only I think everyone that comes to Hollywood's got a chip on their shoulder

I mean, everyone, unless you're like a kid actor, like you were, if you're moving from like the Midwest or out East or whatever, I feel any person that comes in entertainment industry is there to prove something. And normally it's like, you're trying to prove you're a little better than your hometown or whatever. I got to a point where I felt that I'd been overlooked in a lot of areas because I had my 15 minutes of fame and stupid shit and

And I was like, fuck it. No one's going to give me an opportunity to direct anything. Too pretty for that. He's too young. How are you going to get anyone to give you a shot? You've got to pay for it. You've got to do it yourself. So most people spend their lives running around chasing financing and money and, oh, give me this, and here's my pitch, and here's that. And it's people trying to make money. But when you're doing something, and money is your last thing,

focus on your mind and you're like, you know what? The money will come if the product's good. And I mean, I overspent. That was the problem. But if I had known how to do this, I mean, you make a lot of errors first time you do it. I've never done this before. I mean, I've been a producer on things, but I've never done everything. Like I licensed the music. I figured out the legal, the fair use laws. And that's, I don't want you to talk in a second. I'll shut the fuck up. No, no, I'm loving this. I'm loving it. I'm listening to this, man.

What kids don't know, even my age, your age, and younger specifically, they see like TikTok and Instagram where you can use really fucking expensive music for nothing. It edits for you on AI. So you just put it in and you have this beautiful edit. That all costs a fuck ton of money when you're playing on a streamer.

Like, oh, you like that song, that Billy Isles sort of song? That's $600,000 a use. Wow. So they don't really understand like, oh, I wonder why they didn't have this song or this music. It's like you can't afford it. Every single clip that you use that you don't own, if it doesn't follow in a fair use law, you have to pay for it. Like E, we're trying to get E clips from back in the day. They were like $15,000 for 30 seconds. Yeah.

Like that's just like, so you have your film costs. Every time we run a camera, depending on if we're in LA, Hawaii, whatever, it's five minimum all the way up to like $30,000 for Carmen. Cause we had her stylist, we had her lighting because she wouldn't do it otherwise. So we're not paying the talent. Yeah.

But we're paying to make them look the way they want to look. And I got really close to everyone that it was really important to me that they liked the story I was telling. And I didn't give a fuck if you were the biggest star on the show or the littlest star on the show. It was whose story was the most interesting. And Pamela Anderson, I got some flack. I read all the reviews. Oh, you do? I read the bad ones because I think they're funny. Because I laugh at critics because what is a critic?

It's a failed creative. You can critique me when you've done what I've done. Better, worse, whatever. If you make the shittiest movie in the world, I have respect for you. But if you're here, oh, why didn't he do this? Why didn't he do more of Pamela Anderson? He should have done this.

Because I couldn't. It wasn't physically possible. That's why. There's parameters. Sure, if you have an endless budget, you can fucking pay for anything. Get any music you want. I mean, Megan Ellison, billionaire, Larry Ellison's daughter, she makes great fucking product. But she's a fucking billionaire and she loses money on every single thing. The entertainment industry now is like a museum. It's rich people donating art.

And the stuff you see on Netflix that you're like, oh, that looks like a Hallmark movie. That's a piece of shit. Because that's the in-house stuff. And the good stuff is literally just product being donated by rich people. And that's what this entertainment industry has become because there's no money left. Wow. Interesting. There's no money left. Like you guys, what were you guys getting paid per episode on Baywatch?

100K? No, pennies, dude. But Cast of Friends was making a million dollars an episode. We were making like $3,500. Wow. Is that just timing? Because you were before that show, right? It's syndication. Explain the difference of syndication and network. I read a comment. Pamela's son, Brandon, was like, oh, my mom got fucking ripped off and she makes this, that, and the other. The reality is that show was not set up to pay these actors. Mm-hmm.

Friends was on an advertising model. It's NBC. It's a huge show. They're getting huge advertising dollars to have advertising during that show, and that money's going back in the actors' pockets because we can afford a million dollars an episode because you guys are selling huge ad revenue. It's like YouTube. If you have a gazillion followers on YouTube, you're getting more money because your channel is getting more views type thing, whereas the syndication model, it's these little tiny territories that...

There's no money. There's no ad revenue. They were trying to take money from brands to build advertising within the show. Like, hey, give me Oakley sunglasses and then we put it in there. These guys, say what you want about Birken Schwartz, let's

those guys are pretty crafty fuckers, like way ahead of their time in like branding and cross promoting before, you know, that word was even a thing. So, but you know, licensing deals. Yeah. I mean, you guys, there was money to be made, but there wasn't money technically for the actors. And, um,

Did they kind of screw you guys? Sure, they could have paid you guys more, but they were smart enough to realize they didn't allow anyone to become a big star. And they kept you in your place, whereas I want to negotiate. I want more money. I'm a star on the show. They're like, no, that's cool. We'll find another hot blonde. It's all good.

you know that's cool you know this we're paying you nine thousand dollars like that's what you're getting yeah oh you want 50. oh i got there's another girl with big boobs in this blonde and we can just put her on and name her the same character and it's all good and that's where i think social media has changed the game for actors because if you build up a brand now exactly you can negotiate your pet exactly these netflix stars signing like a million dollars a year deals

Well, it's brilliant because it's like a proof. It's proof of the product. Like, hey, I got, you know, like your Instagram, you have 12 million viewers. There is proof that you have interest in your product. So if you're going to go negotiate a deal, like, I mean, here are my numbers. Here's my stats. You can see exactly what kind of audience I draw. You guys really didn't have any of that kind of stuff. Right. You had no leverage. Yeah. And, you know, when you're

15-year-old kid making 15 grand a week, you'd think it's pretty sweet back then. At that age, that's good. It felt cool. No, I mean, for a kid actor, you put that shit away? Did you put it away? I put it on my nose. Where else did you put it? I put it on my lungs. I put it on my nose. I got a lot stolen. Stolen? Yeah, so many $100,000 deals of lawyers, rehabs. It goes quick, man.

When did you start to kind of lose control? I mean, you said it was kind of at the end of Baywatch. You really got fucked up. Yeah, end of Baywatch is where I really started partying hard. But, you know, I had a single mom. I'm from Orange County. I'm a beach kid, you know, with a single mom and a...

Dad that's in and out of prison and on housing, low-income housing and food stamps and stuff like that, getting free cheese and rice, standing in line at the church because my mom's too embarrassed to go in there and admit how poor we are. So coming out of that...

Buying my mom her first not broken down car, being able to give that to my grandma and buy my mom a brand new 4Runner back in the day was a big deal. But she's taking me to all these freaking auditions. I don't feel like she stole anything from me. It was really hand to mouth. Never had a whole bunch of money stacked away. And when we did, then I'd get in trouble and it'd be...

a couple hundred thousand dollars to a lawyer and a rehab to stay out of trouble because I was partying so hard so early on. I think your mom was a good mom. I think it's funny when his mom has never done an interview before. It was actually hard to talk a lot of these people into doing interviews because they don't want to do them because you're not paying them. They're like, we just get massacred in the press all the time. Why do we want to be in the spotlight again? This is counterproductive for us.

but she made comments, I think off camera or stuff that we just ended up not using that she said, even if you weren't a kid actor, you would have done what you did. Oh yeah, for sure. It wouldn't have mattered. No, the Hollywood, that's one of the main questions I get. It's like, oh, you know, you were probably just around so much bad influence or something. I was like, pfft.

Dude, no, I was seeking that. I was dying for that. I was gravitating towards that. The entertainment industry just provided me more money and more power to utilize, you know, by being recognized to sneak into the club. And I had a thousand dollars to pay the bouncer when I was 14 to get into the club.

you know, so it just gave me more opportunities to dig a deeper hole faster. It was not the entertainment industry that was a bad influence on me. I was, I would have been in gangs. I'd probably be in prison for the rest of my life if I wasn't on TV and didn't have the money to get out of the trouble that I was getting myself into. Wow. Yeah, for sure. So you think it was just in you? Oh yeah. I could, I could go on,

you know, forever on this topic. Uh, there's, there's something that exists in the amygdala of about 9% of the world's population. It's a mutation of the brain, which we can call a mental defect. And you're retarded. No, no, it's actually called the warrior gene by science. They breed this into mice to make mice harder working, more dedicated and, um, harder to kill. Uh,

And they put a thousand mice in a cage with booze, toys, food, and shelter. And out of the thousand, about nine to 10% of them, lots of them try the booze, most of them. But about 9% will stay at the vodka and drink until they die. And so what they do is they grab that 9% before they die and they breed them. And now you got a 26% out of the next thousand.

And then they grab those 26% before they kill themselves with the booze and they breed them. And now you got a 50% and they just keep doing it until you got a hundred percent. Now you got a thousand baby mice, never tasted booze in their life. And they're all just around booze, ignoring the shelter, ignoring the food, ignoring the toys, and they're going to kill themselves. They take those mice, they breed those mice, they take that offspring and they never expose them to booze. And those mice are 10 times more expensive for research purposes in the research community. I mean, this is

So you think you have that gene? I definitely have that gene. I was mixing household chemicals with a towel under the door when I was a year old. I stuck something in every electric socket of my house. I wanted outside power to make me feel different. Your poor fucking mom, dude. Yeah.

Oh, you're poor. Oh man. Can you imagine? Probably worrying about you every night. Oh God. Jeremy put his penis in the light socket again. It was a tear. No, I would stick my penis outside of the screen door to have the neighborhood kids suck on. Do not use that. Do not use that. You go ahead, man. But it was electric sockets and it was household chemicals. And nobody ever showed me that. What, what I was told is be, don't do that. It's dangerous. It's,

be careful this is not for you so my little mind decided that there's something that people know that i don't know and that's something that they know that they're not telling me about is my answer to feeling a part of this world because i don't interiorly feel like i'm a part of this world i i mean i have an internal searing going on i'm restless i'm irritable i'm discontent and it seems as if there's a secret

that I must find. So I just got real busy doing anything and everything, especially if you told me it was dangerous, naughty, wrong, then I thought you were keeping a secret from me. So I needed to go do it right away. Wow. That's crazy. Tell Jeremy not to do it and he'll do it. Yeah. So yeah, I got the warrior gene, but they call it the warrior gene because...

Through studying some of our civilizations and different, you know, smaller groups of people, Irish fighting Irish. You ever heard about an Irish joke and holding his liquor and, you know, a priest and Irishman walk into a bar, yada, yada. It's socially acceptable that Irish people are crazy when they drink.

Well, it turns out for 100 years when England tried to have a genocide and kill all of Ireland, the ones that were the most likely to survive were the ones that were most likely to have this warrior gene because they will do anything. Your peripheral vision in the eye of chaos, in the eye of certain death, or when somebody else or your life is in danger, your peripheral vision expands. Your sense of smell, hearing, and an innate knowing of what to do becomes very clear and concise. So you're more likely to survive.

And then they have babies, so their babies are more likely to have this genetic predisposition to...

Wow.

protect the procreation of mankind or something to do with evolution that at least 9% of any small bespoke community, whether it's way out in the Andes or, you know, the Aborigines in, in Australia or whatever, that, that,

When a bear comes into the camp, at least 9% of them are going to run at the bear rather than away. When there's scarcity of food or water, at least 9% of them will go to any extent to make sure their people survive. And that's really what drug addiction is, by the way. How do you control your mind, man? It is a superpower. I'm just trying to follow you and it's just like... Drug addiction is actually a superpower. It's not a curse. You just need to learn how to wield it in the right direction. How did you figure out how to sort of control your head?

And manage it. I mean, I think it probably took you 40 something years to do it. Yeah, it did. It took me a long time, but it doesn't really matter how long it takes. Once you have that liberation, once you crack through the firmament of your own constructs, it's fucking worth every stitch of pain that you ever went through. And I would say it's by self-forgetting that I found.

- Ego death? - What? Yeah. - 'Cause I know you had an ayahuasca journey, right? - Well, I've participated in, I've held space, I've been a facilitator in both ibogaine and ayahuasca journeys. I've done a lot of DMT myself.

However, I've never done the ayahuasca, but I did a breath work at an ayahuasca ceremony with the president of the International Committee representing Spain. He flew in. We were outdoors in Punta de Mida, Mexico. We had a surgeon, a guy curing cancer down there holistically. We had a double MIT PhD guy there, multimillionaires, this kind of really, really powerful group of dudes there.

And I asked the guy if I could just do breath work. And I just, I laid there and I thought I had been breathing for 45 minutes. When I sat up to take what I thought was a break, it had been four and a half hours. And I had gone into every realm of awakening that anybody else had. It was insane. Like I tapped into everything.

through breath work. Crazy. I might as well have done it. So you were hallucinating on breath work? All the time. That's normal. Wow. Losing complete concept of your physical self and of time. By the way, you know the Icaros that they sing and they play. They have this rattle and a flute. And every time the music stopped, I had to stop breathing and I would hold my breath. And anytime I tried to breathe faster than the cadence, I couldn't.

I had to, I was, I was locked in, dude. I was, and I played around with it. I was like, Ooh, I want to go deeper, right? I want to go deeper. I couldn't, I was in flow with this dude. Now the next day I realized there's no possible way the shaman stopped playing for only two or three minutes.

In four and a half hours, he might have left the room for 20 minutes. I have no clue. But I know that I held my breath anytime the music wasn't playing. I could have been holding my breath for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or 30 minutes. I don't know because I had no concept of time or of physical flesh vessel.

I was like totally astral projected for a long, long time. That's impressive. It was incredible. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And that's why the power of breath work for me is, is so it's such medicine. The medicine is inside. I run a company in orange County. We have, tell them like kind of what you do now for a living and sort of how you've

You've kind of left the team in a way and you don't really give a shit about it. If it comes, it comes. It's so cool, man, because as soon as I really didn't care anymore, as soon as I

didn't have some like Hail Mary, you know, saving grace idea, you know, that glimmer of hope that some movie or some TV show or some reality show, give me another couple hundred grand real quick. And if I had that other hundred grand real quick, then I could do what I want to do and enjoy it. And

blah, blah, blah, blah. As soon as I really didn't care anymore, like it came to me and I was like, Oh God, I just got out. But it was in a very, very different paradigm. Like I was working with this dude's heart, with this dude's vision, by the way, what you said about,

putting that project together, facing the uncertainty, forces coming against you, having a vision. Everyone tried to fuck with me for years. He said he's like, he's not really into the spiritual shit, but you heard every bit of spiritual journey applicable to any human experience, any undertaking in life. You just, you...

A to B. It was full Buddhism. You were open to anything, attached to nothing. It was quantum leaping from where you were at to where you went with no effort, not caring. Like it was so beautiful. Everything you said was super freaking spiritual. And if you can take that recipe. You know, after we filmed you, like the first day, remember when I got in the car and I was talking to you about going to jail and stuff like that and we were filming in the back of the car? Yeah.

So initially, Fremantle is a company that owns Baywatch. And they're the distributor in the UK. And they kind of became a big production company because of Baywatch type thing. And now they have all these like big shows. But Baywatch is really kind of what put them on the map. And I did a real like ballsy move. And I just did like a 10-page release in Hollywood Reporter with all the actors, their quotes. And I'm doing a Baywatch documentary.

And then everyone that like owns a show, they're like, who the fuck is this guy? Like, how the fuck does he think he's going to do this? He never talked to us. He never called us. I'm like, oh, fuck it. I'm doing it. And they called me right away. Like the two creators called me. They got my number. They like literally called me within two hours of the trade release. And then Fremantle, the head, like the CEO of Fremantle UK, like called me like not like a lackey, like the dude, but

And he's like, oh, well, how are you doing? I'm like, we're finance. We're good to go. He's like, oh, well, we'd be really interested in this. This would be really great. So I'm like, well, this is fucking great. We'll give you full access to our archives and whatever you need. And this is so great for the brand and this, that, and the other. And then because many of the actors don't like the creators, right?

or don't not like them, they feel like they're owed money when they do a licensing deal with Amazon or Hulu or whatever. Theoretically, they don't owe them anything. Contractually, no one's going to just give you money. Oh, I just made a million dollar deal. Oh, Jeremy, I'm sending you a $40,000 check just because I love you. It doesn't work that way. So I had to balance the creators against some of our higher talent people

Because they didn't like them. So the creators now are nervous thinking I'm doing, this is like the beginning of Me Too. And you have a show like Baywatch, which people just assume like that's going to play in there. And they think I'm doing this like Ronan Farrow expose going to take everybody down, like Nickelodeon, like the Nickelodeon thing. Never my intention. And I assured them that. But they didn't believe me.

So they emailed us right after I finished Jeremy and they're like, we have no interest in this documentary. We will not help this in any way, shape or form. This is five years ago. Wow. First day of filming my co-producer who put in some money to Ari Shofit. He looks at me, he goes, dude, he goes, maybe we should just like eat the money on the shoot and just say, fuck it. And I go, no, I'm the fuck off. Let's go.

And we just did that continually. And then they would come back and they'd want to see it. And then there was a third creator that didn't participate that I just assumed he didn't want to participate because not everyone does. He's an older guy, doesn't want to participate. No big deal. We got Michael and Doug who were awesome and the two other creators that gave us great archives, were really behind the project. Turns out two years into this thing,

This fucking guy is pitching his own thing behind my back, trying to compete with me, like just working in the shadows. I have no idea. Now here's some spirituality for you. So a friend of mine, Kyle Newman, who's a pretty established director, like big NYU film school stud, he calls me up one day and he was very helpful. He, you know, helped me with like all my friends helped me. Even people that weren't credited, they all helped me. Like this wasn't just like I was able to navigate. Like I was asking a lot from a lot of people.

And he goes, dude, my friend just told me he's doing a Baywatch documentary. And this is about a year and a half ago. And he said he's doing a Baywatch documentary. I'm like, oh, you're doing my friend Matt's? He's like, no. He's like, my buddy Matt just interviewed like 38 of them, and he spent a bunch of his own money. Like, you should maybe call him before you try to start this.

So these guys call me and they're like, you know, how much money did you spend? Like, cause no one knew I had the ability to finance it. I just, I don't live flashy. I don't, I don't, you know, no, no, I had a pot to piss in. And they're like, well, how much you spend? And I told them how much I spent. They're like, really? And I sent him the trailer. I sent him the, the breakdown. I sent him that we licensed the song. I sent everyone's involved. They're like,

Oh, well, we were told this project wasn't real. So this guy is going around telling everyone this project's not real while he's trying to pitch it. Stealing your breakdown. Right. Email verbatim. So he got one of the actors, they're still friendly, sent my email over.

And then they sent it back to me from a different production company. They didn't even change anything. They just signed their fucking name on it. It was literally my internal email explaining what the project was. And it was about the 90s and this and that and the other. I was like, wow. So I sent this guy the trailer. I sent him a – this was a friend of a friend too. I mean he didn't know what he was doing.

But it was fucking personal. I had followed these guys. Mike Newman is really sick with Parkinson's. It meant a lot to him. And this guy was trying to derail it. And I wasn't worried about another project.

I was worried about a piece of shit that would have been made that would dilute our project. That was my concern. So I'm like, I got to be first to market. We're fucking around with this too long. I really pushed it forward. And I sent this guy an email and I just told him, I go, look, I go, this is really personal. I spent birthdays with these people. I spent holidays with these people. If you try to do this, I will go out of my fucking way to make sure no one talks to you. Have a good day. That was it.

Then the people that bought my product, they sent me the breakdown from this guy being like, this isn't your project. It looks really like kind of bad. And I go, that's not fucking me. Saw it was the guy. So then he gets upset silently. And after, while our acquisition is happening with Disney, he,

We start the acquisition. We talk to Fremantle. They know what the project is. They saw it. They had the ability to buy it. They only wanted to commit to international and not domestic. And you don't want to break the territories up. It's just a bad deal. Everyone wants all world. And they knew what the project was. So this third creator, obviously he saw it because they probably sent it to him. And he's like, oh, I heard it's just not that good.

And, you know, it's not really good for our brand. And so while I was in acquisitions, they had a deal with Fremantle to give us four minutes of Baywatch clips that we're going to pay for. Like a lot of money, like a couple hundred thousand dollars. Like not like chump change. It goes in their pockets. And we got an email like at the 11th hour at like 3 o'clock in the morning saying,

We're no longer going to license any clips to you. This fucking guy lobbied Fremantle to not license me clips to try to blow my deal up at the end. Wow.

Everyone tried to drop bullshit on me, but guess what happened? I had all their fucking home videos. This guy goes to Florida, and he's like, I got 11 years of home videos. And it's all the behind the scenes of the episodes. Why do we want to see some lame Baywatch episode of some slow motion bullshit that's remastered and looks like it was filmed yesterday, but it's got a bag phone instead of a regular cell phone? I mean, you can't even tell if it's new or old because of how it's remastered.

And we finally got everyone to realize that we don't need these clips. We have fair use. We can use much less and we can get away with this. So Jeremy came, then David Chokachy gave me like 10 years, then Nicole came, Gina came, and we just fucking trump carded them. Wow. And it was just like they tried to stop me until six weeks ago. So even after a release, they were still trying to stop you?

Three weeks before the release. My deal was not signed. I worked unpaid delivering this thing for seven months just solely with ABC News and Hulu. And they didn't sign my deal to the very end. Business Affairs was trying to tell the ABC News studios by no means do this deal. This is going to happen. Don't do this. Don't do that. And...

Literally at the 11th hour, we signed the deal. Five years ago, I would have told you and lived by the credo, you can't polish a turd. But this guy did the impossible. The problem is that most people that were involved in Baywatch, they only see the turd. They're trying to resell the turd. Matt turned it into treasure. Literally, he got into the heart of people in the story. He made Baywatch...

Not just the pretty bullshit, but helping people realize that there are humans too who are hurt, who are stuck, who have moved on, who are half in and half out, who are sick and dying, who are battling cancer, who are helping other people in the addiction world. It's just...

Nobody else could have done it. I never really thought – I mean, I grew up on Baywatch. I mean, I'm probably like most people. You wouldn't watch a full episode. You kind of just have it on the back. You look at like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to look at as a guy, and that's the girl I'm supposed to date type thing. But it was very influential. I mean, I was a real lifeguard in the problem. Oh, yeah? 80% because of the show. Because it looked cool. Like, fuck, I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to get tanned. I'm going to be ripped. I'm going to be with hot girls. Like, that's –

I live in California. I mean, I live in Malibu. I mean, I came from Wisconsin. I mean, there's probably a reason I live where I live. And I'll be lame enough to admit it probably was this guy. My older brother's friends used to call me fucking Hobie, which was his character. I'm like, what's up, little Hobie? What's going on, man? Because I was like a little Wisconsin kid that wanted to be Californian. We're all like the surf gear, even though we couldn't surf because we're in fucking Wisconsin.

Did they hit you up when they made that movie a few years ago with Zac Efron? They did. Oh, they did? Yeah. I did a FaceTime kind of pre-check-in interview in the backseat of a car, probably been out for two weeks, smoking meth pretty regularly. So you probably didn't get the job? I'm pretty sure I had just stabbed a knife-wielding gunman, and I was on the run for attempted murder. Wow. And I was like...

Yeah, I can pull it together. No problem. They never called me back. Holy crap. That's crazy. You know, everything that exists on the face of this planet to make supercars and computers existed when cavemen were here, but they didn't have a conscious awareness of it. The opportunities are abundant and infinite and endless. The opportunity came to me. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. I wasn't aware of it.

So stay ready, man. - So then you went to rehab from there, right? Celebrity rehab. - Yeah, celebrity rehab was quite an adventure. - Didn't you get kicked out right away? - What's that? - Didn't you get kicked out? - No, no, no. - Where's that big brother? - They had offered me the show a million times and I was clean and sober for over 10 years during that time. And I was like, "No, no, no." And then they called me and I was like, I mean, 15 years ago, okay?

Ashwagandha, cordyceps, freaking holy basil. All that shit that's like super popular. All the stuff that I'm injecting, IGF, BPC, TB500. I'm taking copper peptide. I'm taking human growth hormone. I'm injecting procaine solution, Gerovital, Cerovital, all of these anti-aging, biohacking stuff. I'm on B12. I mean, I'm sticking L-carnitine and glutathione. I'm just doing like 11 injections a day.

And I'm like, I'm sober, but if you come over to my house and see what I do, like, I look like I'm out of control. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You got to be like on drugs. I'm like, just come spend a day with me. Watch. And they come over to my house and I got kilos of human growth hormone and all these different injectable peptides. And they're like, whoa.

okay, you can do the show. So I went on the show. Oh, you are fucked up. For steroid abuse. You can come. Right? And I'm saying these words and all these things I'm taking to them. It sounds like I'm on illicit chemicals. Yeah, but the irony is is like Rogan and all those guys, they're all like, I was doing it 15 years ago. Rejecting TRT now. I mean, every actor. Now if you're not doing it, you're lame. Every actor over 35 that's in a Marvel movie with Jack,

is on growth hormone and testosterone. - 100%. - 15 years ago, I walked into the set of Celebrity Rehab with my water purification system, and they said, "What's going on?" And I said, "Oh, dude,

tap water like fucks with your sexuality like it calcifies your pineal gland and it creates a lot of sexual deviancy and all kinds of free thinking issues and it's basically one of the hugest problems in our world today and I got slammed in the media Jeremy Jackson says drinking tap water makes you gay and I was like trying to explain that it perverts it doesn't your normal no it's

It's, you know, there's the frog stuff, the Maphrodite fish and frogs and all this stuff about hormones in the water and birth control in the tap water. Why do you think everyone misquotes you, too? I find it funny how everyone – it actually makes me mad because I really know these people really, really well now.

And I know how hesitant all of them were to go on camera because they just get fucked with the movie all the time. They take... Even the fucking panty sniffing thing. I think I'm just ahead of the curve. That's pretty normal to me. I'm like, he's fucking 12. At 12, I would do that shit. You should go to prison. You're a rapist. What a fucking pervert. We're normalizing this? Limitations is up. I'm going to come arrest you myself. Okay. Yeah, the funny thing is, Jeremy and I read all the bad stuff, which most people don't. I love it. I think it's kind of funny.

But yeah, all you guys get misquoted or like the girls always get like, you know, all the girls, I mean, they're in their 50s. Some are even older, like Alexandra, I think just turned 60 this

And these are still really beautiful women, and they get them coming out of the grocery store in sweatpants. They're like, oh, look what happened to so-and-so. She looks terrible. It's like, you look like ass too when you go to the – it's like – and it's an unflattering photo. And it's like, I don't care how good looking you are. You can have an unflattering photo. But the tabloid media chooses who's going to be –

Like the villain and who's going to be the prince or princess type thing. It's whatever. And they've chosen – for whatever reason, I feel it's like anyone that's gotten too much fame or validation for looking a certain way –

They love to kick them off. They do to Britney Spears. I mean, it's like you build them up and then you kick them off. For millions of years, you sacrifice the virgin to the volcano. You put Jesus up on the cross. You build these people up in your own mind. You praise them and worship them. They're perfect. They're purity. And then let's smoke them. That's how the entertainment industry used to be. It's not that...

so much like that anymore. Well, no, it's different. The media has been like bullied into saying, oh, you can't say the name. But now it's the consumer that's the fucking asshole. It's the dude in his fucking basement. Oh, Jeremy Jackson. Fuck him. He looks terrible. He's on steroids. Fuck him. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fucking pervert. His girlfriend's homeless. It's all his fucking fault. You used to chew me up. Now it doesn't bother me. Yeah, it used to bother me. Now it's funny, like you said. What can they say bad about you?

Mainly the guests I have on, but yeah. You had the Hak Tui girl on. I had her on, yeah. I saw that. I mean, Jeremy, you had to be on 11 years. She's talking about stink bugs? Yeah. You had to be on TV for 11 years. I had to struggle for five years. She got to just spit on a penis and get on. Yep. Not even, she probably didn't even really, she probably doesn't even really do it. She just said it. Yeah. It's probably not, it's probably dry hand job. It's probably just all teeth. Wait, is she of age? She's old enough, right? She is, right? She has to be.

Okay good, then I feel really bad. Then I'd be the fucking... So we won't get cancelled, no? Okay good. It's all teeth. I've been with the Hak'tu'o girl. Yeah. Just kidding, I'm kidding. That's the technique, teeth. These child stars, man, it could go either way. Did you see what happened with Amanda Bynes? Oh man. You know, I feel bad for her. I used to see her at Equinox all the time, like in West Hollywood, and she was so cute and so fit and just so fucking talented.

And you just, you know, Britney Spears, same thing. I mean, I saw, I mean, I did the video with her in, I think, 2004 or 5. I had a girlfriend that ended up being in rehab with her when she shaved her head. So I was in Promises watching my girlfriend at the time with Britney Spears. So I was seeing the shaved head, the wig, all that kind of stuff. And it's fucking sad. It's wild. And it's...

I think it's just, it's pressure from, I don't think you've ever had a proper nervous breakdown, you personally. Maybe just no one was there to film it. No, but I just, I think there, it's the pressure. It's just like nervous breakdown. Nerves don't break down. People break down. Well, I think it's just, they've had just such traumatic. Wayne Dyer, by the way. It's just, if you're a kid-

I mean, you know the pressure. Yeah. But imagine the pressure like of a Britney Spears or Amanda Bynes is a pretty big deal. It's not too dissimilar from like Michael Jackson, you know? I mean, what is Corey Feldman doing the whole Michael Jackson thing right now? You know, when you...

have to be this product or you have to be this package and the product and the package is dependent upon your livelihood and you can't do it enough. You just want to become a different person. And, you know, most of these really good entertainers, most of these highly gifted, highly talented people are doing it to win approval because inside they really hate themselves. And if they get enough accolades outside themselves, they might like themselves more.

more on the inside, which is of course an illusion and a fantasy. It doesn't work. But when you can't get enough, when that Dwayne's and dwindles and wanes, then you just want to emasculate yourself. You know, when you realize like a Michael Jackson suit, everybody loves him bowing at his feet and he still wasn't happy because there's those couple people who talk bad about you. You just, it's, it's, it's self harm. It's self harm and self soothing experience.

all at the same time. You want to just become a different person on the outside. And Amanda Bynes really made herself a different person. She did. No, physically. Yes. Did you see the recent surgery? Crazy. Yeah, it's like they almost don't want to be that person anymore. It doesn't matter what it is or even if they...

quote unquote, make themselves worse or a worse version of themselves to whatever the public wants us to be. Because they get wrapped up in that childhood identity, right? Absolutely. I think you wanted to get rid of your childhood identity forever. Totally. I mean, potentially, that's what my whole drug addiction, running around with criminals and doing crime and just trying to sell drugs. You want to be a badass. I wanted to just be the furthest thing away from a Hollywood pretty beach boy I possibly could. Right.

You know, running around in the San Fernando Valley stealing cars is pretty far from that, you know? Did you get caught? Not really, a couple times. Statue of limitations. I'd be under the jail if they caught me for all this stuff. Guys, it's been a blast. Closing thoughts and where can people watch the show? We're on Hulu internationally starting September 19th.

And we've been on Hulu domestically since September 28th. And then Disney Plus in every country that you don't have Hulu. Boom. There you go. Closing thought, Jeremy Jackson Fitness launches tomorrow. Oh. I go live with my...

My in-home program for people struggling with mental health, body dysmorphia, anxiety, and depression, creating morning routines, PM journaling routines, nutrition and fitness to build the mind, body, and spirit. A lot of people are just trying to get in shape. The building collapses because they don't have the proper foundation. I've put together a formula that's worked for me to be in the best shape of my life, both mentally and physically.

and emotional. So giving people a process to follow along, to lift up people from zero to hero. Those are my people. And you can find me at Jeremy Jackson Fitness on Instagram. - Man, I just want to take a nap. - Let's go. - Tired episode guys. Thanks for coming on. We'll link everything below. - Appreciate it. - Thanks for watching guys. See you next time.