Before we get going today, I wanted to tell you about another Radiotopia podcast you should be listening to, Song Exploder. Song Exploder is an award-winning show about the creative process behind music. Artists break down one of their songs, letting you hear all the different layers in the recording, from instruments to beats to vocals. And most importantly, they talk about why they made the creative choices they did. Song Exploder is not just for music nerds. It's for anybody who cares about creativity or wants to feel inspired to create something.

It's hosted by Rishi Keshe Hiraway, who you might know from the podcast Home Cooking or the West Wing Weekly. The episodes are short, about 20 minutes each, and my recommendation is to start with an episode featuring an artist you love. And then listen to one with an artist you don't know at all. There are over 250 episodes with guests like Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Solange, Beats,

Billy Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers, FK Twigs, The Killers, Dua Lipa, and John Batiste, and more. Each episode is really a miniature portrait of an artist and how their creative mind works, with the song as the lens we see them through. It's also a great way to discover new music. It's a different kind of experience to get introduced to a song this way, learning how and why each piece and idea came together before you hear the whole song at the end.

find your favorite episode of song exploder and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or at songexploder.net now this is a scam podcast welcome back to gossip scams hello everyone and welcome to the first bonus episode of season two if you're listening to this and being like wait that's not kelsey you're right we're

I'm Alexie John Laughlin. I'm the producer of this show. And I've also got our editor, Justin Ellis here. Hello, Alex. Hello, Justin. Before we get into the chaos that is this bonus episode, I just wanted to quickly remind you that we are currently on our season break between seasons two and three because Kelsey and I and the rest of our team need rest. But...

We are still putting out episodes on our super secret subscriber feed. If you want access to that, become a friend or a friend of a friend at support normal gossip.com. Each month we're publishing a new episode featuring a friend level subscriber who will come on and tell Kelsey a gossip story. So if you subscribe at the friend level, then you can be entered into a pool to become that subscriber.

When you become a friend level subscriber, you also get added to our close friend circle on Instagram. And so we will follow you and we'll share some bonus content with you throughout the break.

Normal Gossip is part of Defector Media, which is a subscriber-based media company. And so we can only do what we're doing because of you guys, because of the subscribers. So thank you to everybody who's already become a friend or friend of a friend. And if you want to become a subscriber, go to supportnormalgossip.com.

Okay, so Kelsey will be with us in a little bit. But first, Justin and I are going to tell you what's going on here. Yeah, that's actually a good question because I'm not normally here. So Alex, what are we doing here?

Okay, so we talk a lot on this show, both internally and externally to all of you, about how gossip is essentially a game of telephone. One story goes through another person, it changes a little bit, it goes through another person, it changes a little bit. And I think we all know this conceptually, but we wanted to play a game this season to illustrate just how much a story can change from one person to the next. Okay.

So I cooked up this little scheme and that's what we're doing here today. So basically, at the beginning of season two, I picked out a gossip story from one of you and anonymized it. And then I told it to our first guest, Daniel Henderson. And then I asked her to tell the story back to me as if she was relaying the gossip.

I recorded that. And then I played that recording for our second guest, Kalen Kaler. And we did the same thing. And on and on and on. So all this season, we have had this short gossip story traveling through the guests. And Kelsey has not known what the story was. Wait, so you're telling me the whole time Kelsey has not heard any of this? No, it's been killing her. Because she's been like on the video chats just with her headphones out watching us gossip. It's been amazing. Yeah.

It's very fun to keep our host in the dark, isn't it? Yes, she's hated it. So at the end of the season, the story had gone through, I guess, eight people, including me. And I played the recording for Julia Furlan, who was our last guest. And then Julia told Kelsey the story and Kelsey finally got to hear it. That is very exciting.

um it changed a lot and uh we're gonna go through it now we're gonna listen to all of the versions of the story to start off i thought i would tell you justin the original story okay anonymized original version are you ready i think i can put myself in the place to be ready okay so this is verbatim what i read to danielle before our first recording

Our friend of a friend is part of a group chat with college friends. This story concerns one friend named Elliot. Before the pandemic, Elliot started dating Kyle. Kyle had grown up super religious and had been married to a woman, but he came out, left his family, left the church, and moved to the city where he met Elliot.

Everyone in the group chat was obsessed with Kyle. He was so warm, genuine, thoughtful. They moved in together, adopted Kat, and are teaching it all kinds of cool tricks. Turns out you can teach Kat's tricks. I don't know if you knew that. I did not know that at all.

Then Elliot proposes and Kyle proposes back. It's so cute. The pandemic hits and the group chat starts doing zooms as you do. Usually significant others will pop in and say hi and everybody loves to see Kyle. A few weeks later, the group zooms and Kyle doesn't show up. So they ask where he is.

Elliot says, I didn't want to bring this up, but Kyle actually left me. Turns out Kyle just packed up and disappeared. Left the cat. No explanation. Ghosted his fiance and he disappeared off social media. So nobody knows where he went.

Elliot is crushed. So fast forward to a year later and our friend of a friend is scrolling TikTok and suddenly they see a viral video with Kyle. Turns out Kyle has reinvented himself on TikTok in the last year. He's suddenly super religious, but also very much queer. Oh, no. It's a vibe shift, as you would say.

Oh no. He seems to spend his videos making a lot of references to leaving a toxic relationship. What? And loving himself.

Oh, he loved himself right out of that relationship, I guess. And that cat. Oh. And the poor cat. Yeah. So our friend of a friend is like, what the fuck? Kyle has like millions of views, tons of followers. And now we've tracked him down. But he's obviously obliquely talking shit about Elliot. So what do you do? Do you tell Elliot?

Oh, wow. I didn't know that I would have the question. This is exciting. Wow. I mean, it feels like you have an absolute obligation to your friend since now they have apparently become the villain in someone else's TikTok drama. And someone's, you know, putting the big...

love for for jesus queer and jesus out there into the world and uh apparently you're the bad guy i think you gotta you gotta tell your friend when someone's putting that on you right the other thing is that it's been a year and it like was a really really painful thing for elliot and so like do you want to pick up that scab when it's already had a year to scab over

This is a lot of scab talk for normal gossip. I'm so sorry. No, I mean, I think there's two ways of looking at this, right? And I guess it depends on if I have my friend brain on or if I have my I've-been-in-therapy brain on. And, like, therapy brain, I think, says, like, closure is a real thing. And sometimes it's necessary for people to say, well, okay, now I know at least it's still shitty. Right.

The friend brain would probably say, well, if Elliot's moved on and hopefully Elliot's found somebody else and still has the cat and the cat knows all the tricks, then maybe it doesn't fucking matter and let Kyle be Kyle. I think the problem, though, is if Elliot is a TikTok user or social media user of any kind, because let's be honest, if Elliot just is out one day scrolling as we all do and then just sees this

That's a punch. And I don't want that to happen to my friends. So I'm coming back to tell Elliot, sit down, have a drink, and be like, I have some updates for you. I think that makes sense. I had been on the don't tell Elliot train for a little bit. But yeah, I think the smart thing would be to preemptively block Kyle's TikTok account.

So that he never comes across it on accident. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You don't see the worst part is like, it's not just that it's that you also don't want Elliot to like, then be like, Oh, there's also comments. And then the comments are going to be like, I'm so happy that you got free. Isn't it great that you got free? You know, you were in such a bad relationship and you accepted the Lord into your life and you love yourself. And that person is in the past and they were the devil. Like, yeah,

Elliot doesn't need to be the devil in this case. Like, that's horrible. We need to just make sure to get in there early and be like, no, don't go on the social medias today. You know, go outside, get some sun.

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After you told it to Danielle. Yes. Alright, and now the fun begins. Let's go. Alright. So this is a story about a friend of a friend named Elliot. And Elliot is very sweet and charming and lovely and meets this guy named Kyle. Kyle was previously married to a woman but left her.

And gets together with Elliot. And it's great. They move in together. They adopt a cat. They're just having time of their lives. They start doing a group chat. Everyone in the group chat is obsessed with Kyle and just wants to hear more about this relationship.

When the pandemic hits, the group chat starts to Zoom and the significant others are popping in and out of the Zoom background. And so everyone is kind of meeting Kyle and seeing this relationship in real time. And then as the protests and the pandemic kind of hits in full swing, Elliot goes home.

And he is kind of like not hearing from Kyle. He's texting and not really hearing back and trying to reach Kyle and is kind of weirded out that he can't. And then he goes home. He goes back to their apartment that they share, their place that they share. And Kyle is gone. He has packed up everything. He has ghosted on social media. He has deleted accounts. He is nowhere to be found. And worst of all, he left the cat behind.

ghosted Elliot and the cat. So Elliot is like, what the hell? Again, drops into the group chat and is like, what is going on? Like, I have really bad news, but like Kyle left me. So this guy that you all fell in love with is gone. And I have no explanation for it. So cut to a little while later. And one of the group chat friends is on TikTok and sees Kyle in a viral video and

And now he is super religious and he's still super queer. But he's also talking about a toxic relationship that he left. And the friends are now stuck. And the question is, what do you do? Should the friends tell Elliot that not only do they know where Kyle is and who he is, but do they tell Elliot because of this toxic relationship?

that he is now thrusted into the worldwide view. Okay.

All right. So that one stayed pretty close to the original. Yeah, we so far so good. I think the only things that we can see at this point is that there was a slight deviation in that Elliot just brings it up to the group, right? It just went right into that. There was just a little tiny tweak. We kind of like slid past the friends being like, oh, where's Boo? We love Boo. And now it's just Kyle being, now it's just Elliot being like, my life is over. I'm moving on.

All right. So not a big thing. Yeah. The other thing I noticed was that we include a scene now. So Danielle inserted a scene of Elliot arriving home to an empty apartment. That's right. Which was not in the original. Yeah.

I mean, that feels like we just, you know, we've all seen enough music videos and rom-coms. You need the scene. You need the scene when they come home and, like, the rain has just started and, like, it's streaking down the windowpane and there's just nothing in the apartment except for, like, a collection of CDs and a cat meowing. Meow. Exactly. So let's hear story version two with Kaylin.

Okay, so there were two guys in a relationship together named Kyle and Elliot. And Kyle had previously been married to a woman before him and Elliot got together. They lived together.

And they have a cat together. So things are like pretty serious. I'm not sure how long they've been together for. But it seems like it's been, you know, probably at least six months because I don't know if you would live together or have a cat together. I'd say at least a year probably. So things are serious. Things are going well. It's a pandemic when this story is happening. And they start this thriving group chat with other couples that they know.

So the group chat starts during the pandemic in this version? Yeah, and now we're figuring out how time works. Like, oh, maybe it's six months, but perhaps it's a year. I mean, what's the time ratio where someone actually can get a cat when you're in a relationship? That really varies. ♪

And everyone is like very curious, like, who's Kyle? Like, Elliot, introduce us to Kyle. We want to meet your new boyfriend. Like, you're so happy. How are things going? So, you know, the group chat is popping during the pandemic. And then at one point, Elliot went home. While Elliot goes home, Kyle goes.

is supposedly at their apartment with the cat. Obviously they have a cat together. And when Elliot comes back from visiting his family, I can't remember how long he was gone for. Let's say a couple of weeks. He comes back. It wasn't longer than a couple of weeks. It was a short time frame. He comes back and Kyle is gone. The apartment is empty.

The apartment is empty. Wait a second. Everybody keeps honing in, this is going to be a thing. It's all R&B vibes. It's just like, oh no, the apartment is empty. It was solo, there was nothing, everything was gone. It was empty like the heart. Also, they're no longer engaged. Yeah, that didn't happen. The cat was the touchstone. There's no proposals. There's no cute proposals in this.

There is no note. There is no trace of Kyle. It's like he never lived there. He probably took all his furniture and food and whatever, you know, like the Cocoa Puffs that he ate for breakfast every morning. He took that. Like, it's like he was never there. So Elliot is like, what the fuck? Like, where did my boyfriend go? And he never hears from Kyle again.

And then a few weeks, months later, his friends who were part of this group chat who got to know Kyle pretty well, they see Kyle on TikTok of all places. I mean, you can find everybody there apparently now. They find him on TikTok and he is now extremely religious, probably on like the evangelical free branch of TikTok.

He is now very religious and he is talking about, he goes viral for a TikTok specifically about a toxic relationship, which the friends can only assume is Elliot, their friend.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I feel like the biggest thing is that Caitlin seems to be very much a stickler about time. Everything is very much, this happened in a matter of weeks, this happened over a matter of months. Also, the biggest and most important thing here is apparently Elliot is now cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs! It's just the saddest part. The saddest part is not just having the heart broken, but being like, damn,

Where my Cocoa Puffs. Not the Cocoa Puffs. And he took everything in the apartment, which he had not done in previous versions. Took everything. Took everything. Except the cat. Oh, my. Oh, goodness. This is, this is, I love it. All right. This is where things start to take a turn with Tracy. All right. So what happened was there's these two guys. There's Elliot and there's Kyle, right? Right.

Kyle maybe had formerly been married to a woman, didn't work out, went their separate ways. They meet each other. They get a cat. So that's a big deal. I wouldn't just get a cat with somebody that I don't like cats. Right. So for me to get a cat with somebody, I have to really, really fucking love you. So they have a cat. So they're cat official.

And then there's this group chat, right? Elliot has a bunch of friends. They make this group chat. Elliot is just like so happy. Like, you know, the feelings when you're in love and you like somebody. I think I remember what that was like. The flourishing. The flourishing. I remember it's a very pleasant experience.

So he's got a great group of friends, right? So they're all like excited. Like, oh my gosh, we just love seeing you this happy. We have to meet the other half of you because it's when we think of you, we also think of the other person now. We just want to meet them. So they haven't met Kyle yet. That's right. This is a big buildup. This is a big buildup. This is like building some like love of the life, love of your life energy. Yep. Make sure that everything's above board, all of that stuff.

And so Elliot is like, you know what? Yeah, I think. I mean, we got a cat together. So it's time. It's time that you meet the cat. This is trying to get to guess who's coming to dinner now. And so then what happens? Elliot goes out of town to go see some family. Because when you have family, you kind of have to do that sometimes. Yeah.

Hopefully it was a good experience. And it must have been because Elliot stayed gone long enough for him to come back home and find his love nest that he had previously shared with Kyle completely empty. Like, took everything. The cat is gone. Oh, the paws. The cat is gone. The cat's gone. The cat's gone. The cat's gone. Oh, my God.

Tracy! How could you? Mr. Whiskers did not have to be a casualty of this story. Okay, so now the wedding is completely off. Now the wedding is gone, gone. They never even had a proposal. There was none of that. Yeah, because the cat was the ring. The cat was the ring, and the love was already gone, and now the cat is gone, and this is just getting bleak.

He took his favorite cereal with him? Like, who does that? That's such an intensely personal thing, right? Like, there's so many different kinds of cereals. Your favorite cereal is basically a form of, like, you, right? So I think that he was trying to send a very specific message and taking the cereal. Okay, pause. All right, hold on a second. She's really fixating on the cereal. How is taking the cereal, how is cereal theft more serious than taking Mr. Whiskers?

Cat napping. Yeah, cat napping. Actual cat napping. Something you can go down and buy at the bodega is now an offense. But the cat is just like, well, that's the game of the law. For somebody to take your cereal and they don't even like the cereal, that's how much they dislike you. So he takes the cereal, didn't even leave the dust bunnies, took everything. Just mad disrespectful.

And that's it. He just disappears. Elliot does not hear from him. You can't do that to somebody. It's a pandemic, you know? I'm sure he was like, well, maybe the COVID got him. And then that's it. COVID doesn't just rapture you and all of your belongings. The COVID.

The COVID decided to evict you and all of your personal belongings and take the cat too. And the cat. COVID is basically like movers now. That's great. Anyway, he's like, oh my God, I don't know if he has COVID. I don't know if he's alive or dead. It's really fucked up.

And of course, his friends are very, very supportive. Right. Because that's what the group chat is for. No matter what happens, they are on your side. Right or wrong. But this is clearly wrong. Right. Like who just ups and leaves and steal somebody's cereal? You know, also cat. But the cereal. Come on.

So then what happens is some time passes and somebody from the group chat is on TikTok, right? Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And of course, the best and worst thing about TikTok is that anybody can have it. And so they come across a TikTok of a very evangelical, like born again, Christian, very strict person.

everything that's not in the Bible is wrong type of person. And he's just going off and saying all of this terrible stuff and probably very anti-trans, anti-anti-racism, anti-everything good. She is projecting so much onto this person.

Kyle is now a villain. Kyle went from just being, well, we had a breakup and I found Jesus to now no rights for anyone. And has a yard sign that is like, in this house, we don't believe in anything. It's going to get worse. It's going to get so much worse for Kyle. And it's just going off about all this wild stuff. But damn.

This man starts talking about this terrible toxic relationship that he was in and dropping all these hints, but not really saying, you know, too much. So nobody really knew if he was talking about Elliot or not. But the friends are like, he's definitely talking about Elliot. That's so fucked up. It's terrible. The TikTok goes viral, right? Nobody ever reaches out to our man's Elliot. Nobody, like, it didn't even find its way to Elliot, right? So the group chat is like...

Okay, here's the TikTok. Clearly talking about Elliot. What do we do? Do we tell Elliot? Do we just go straight after Kyle? Do we file a police report because he stole his cereal? Like, what are the options? What do we do? What's the plan of action? Okay, things took a turn there. Who?

Man. Okay. So to recap, the cat has now been taken and Kyle apparently is going to be a guest on the Joe Rogan podcast. And the group chat is apparently like the central character now. Yeah. And it appears that they have never even met Kyle. That's right.

That's right. He was a mystery. That's right. A lot has changed. That was only version three. Now we're going to do version four with Lindsay and Bobby from Who Weekly. Okay. So here's the goss. There are these, there's this couple, Elliot and Kyle, and they start dating. They like each other. Okay. They move in together. They get a cat together. It's legit. They get a cat together and they're pretty happy.

And Elliot is telling all of his friends, you know what? I like Kyle. We're having a good time. It's so real that we even got a cat. I'm so happy. This is it. And his friends are like, assumably like, who? Like, why? Like, how do we not know this person? Why? You moved in with somebody. You got a cat with them. And we don't even like...

know who it is. But you know what? We're so happy for you. You seem happier. Maybe this is just like a whirlwind romance. We're inspired by you. We think it's great. We're going to feel positive about this. This is how I would feel, I guess, if a friend of mine did this to me. Although I would be a little bad, but that's okay. That's my thing. Not these people. They felt happy.

Okay, so, like, they're going really hard on the idea that they haven't met Kyle. Yeah, the whole thing now turns into, like, a very mysterious whirlwind romance of, like, your friend has all of a sudden gone from zero to moved in and cat status within a period of time. Almost like your friend was, like, abducted by a cult. Yeah, like, weeks.

Apparently, this was all fine and dandy. These friends said, hey, we can't wait to meet this person. When can that happen? And then Elliot is like, well, you can meet Kyle really soon. I just like, I have to go see my family. So you'll meet Kyle, but like, give me a second because I have to take this trip. I think it had something to do with COVID where he hadn't seen his family in a long time.

They're making it sound so vague. Like, I'm sorry, but I have to leave. How is Elliot shady now? How is Elliot like, well, I'm very much in love, but also I'm hiding this person from you. I must go home. I must return to the East. Oh my goodness.

So he was like, okay, I can finally travel. Family is priority number one. But when I get back, you know what? You're going to meet Kyle and you're going to meet this cat and you're going to love them because my life is iconic now. There's something sus though here. The friends are like, what the hell? What's going on here? Why are you moving in so fast? I think the friends never even saw a photo of this person. That's the thing. Oh my God. All right, pause. Okay. Oh, hold on. Hold on. Oh my God.

So now, see now, this is fascinating. This is why this is such a good and illustrative game. This is now essentially turned into a crime drama. Yeah. This is now a crime podcast. Hi, welcome back to Gossip Crimes. Gossip Crime. Because Elliot's now like, it's like, did Elliot get taken by a grifter?

Or is Elliot the grifter? Why is Elliot being like, oh, well, there's a person. Why is Bobby now saying, there's not even a photo of this person? There's not even a photo? Like, okay. I mean, I have questions because how would you move in with somebody and have this whirlwind romance and not post it all over Instagram? But, you know, kids are weird. Like,

What did Cardi B say? Something about if there's no ring on her finger, you're not going on her gram. Wow. There's clearly no finger. I mean, there's no ring on the finger. There's no gram. There's nothing. There's nothing at all. Okay. There's apparently a lease. There's a cat, but there's no gram. Okay.

The one thing the friends had seen a photo of was the cat. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. Because he was like, look at this adorable cat. His name is Greg. That's so suspicious. Greg! Greg. The cat is named Greg. The cat is named Greg. We have a name. The cat is named Greg, and there's probably some vague hint of an arm in the background of this photo of the cat. Yes. Hairy arm with a watch. That's right.

I cannot show you Kyle, but I can show you the cat Greg. The cat named Greg. Look how cute he is. So Elliot gets back from seeing his family and he opens the door to his apartment and it's empty. It's like fully, Amanza hasn't been there to stage it. Empty, right? No one is in this apartment.

The cat is gone. He took the cat. Kyle took Elliot's favorite cereal, too. Like, literally everything. The cereal stays. So Elliot's like, oh my god, my boyfriend's gone and he took my cat. I'm so upset. And he tells the friends and the friends are sort of like, what? Okay, that's weird. I'm so sorry about that, Elliot. I assume that the friends are sort of like,

you should have seen this coming, but I think the friends are trying to be polite, right? The friends are trying to be supportive. The friends are, one of them at least, is on their TikTok page, on their FYP, and on the FYP is a video of an evangelical TikTok influencer who is apparently extremely religious, extremely fundamentalist, has really problematic opinions, and is like, here's my lifestyle. I'm viral for these horrible opinions, right? Oh, look at my cute cat, Greg. Greg.

Greg is a prop now. Oh, my God. Greg is now in the viral TikTok. Oh, no, no. Oh, no. Greg, don't go on InfoWars. And he's like, I'm straight. Like, that's the... Right. Yes. He's like, I was in this awful relationship, but I found God. Here's my cat, Greg. I'm straight. And my ex is toxic. And the friends see the TikTok and they're sharing it. And they're like, is this about Elliot? Yeah.

And then... Because this is Greg. This is the cat Greg we saw in the photos. The friends are like, oh my God, that's Kyle and Greg. Yes. Do we tell Elliot or not? And that's where we leave you. They don't know if they're going to tell Elliot. Yeah, would you tell Elliot? Okay, so that's the story. Oh my... Okay, okay, okay, wait a minute. Okay, let's think about this. So for Bobby and Lindsay...

Did had the story already mutated beyond the point that there had been a straight relationship segueing into, into the gay relationship or was it just, it was two fellas. It was just two fellas. They, I don't think they got it. Yes, it was flipped. Yes. Yes. It changed. And also I think that from this point forward, um,

Kyle's character? We can call him a character at this point because he is not the person that we started with. We don't recognize this person. He's like a villain now.

It's only going to get worse. And like, like, I feel like he's reached the point of no return from this story onward. Oh, I mean, listen, stole a cat and apparently underwent like conversion therapy and became viral. Wow. Wow. Alex, how did we get here?

I don't know. We listened to it and I don't even know.

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It is so relatable to me. I would like never check my bank account unless I really, really have to because it gives me so much anxiety. And is there a reason that you check your bank account now? Yeah, I get these awesome emails from Rocket Money that are like, hey, FYI, this is how much you spent last week. And it feels like a gentle person holding my hand as I go to my bank account. Oh, yeah.

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Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash gossip. That's rocketmoney.com slash gossip. rocketmoney.com slash gossip. Oh my God, Alex, remember the week that you moved to a completely different state and then also at the same time we had a company retreat that was in New York City? Yeah.

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That's code NORMALGOSSIP50 at factormeals.com slash NORMALGOSSIP50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Oh my gosh. Okay. So we're halfway through now. So next we have Tobin Lowe and he's going to give Greg a new name. That's probably for the best.

Okay, so we start with a gay couple, Elliot and Kyle. It's extremely new, extremely fresh, but as gays sometimes do, it is also extremely heavy and serious, like way too fast. Elliot is our protagonist in the story. We're gonna follow Elliot. So Elliot tells his friends, "I have met the one. Kyle is the one. We are meant to be together. This is it."

And they're like, cool, we've never heard this name before. This feels suspicious. And before they can even blink an eye, Elliot and Kyle are moving in together. They are also getting a cat together. Let's call the cat Mr. Mistoffelees from Cats the Musical, as one does. Wow. New name. Oh my goodness. That's... Mr. Mistoffelees. I mean...

Not even Rum Tum Tucker. Okay, like, let's go. So now all the friends are like, "Hrrr, I don't know, this is extremely fast. We've never met Kyle. We've seen photos of Mr. Mistoffelees, but we've never seen photos of Kyle." So it is suspicious to them, but they bite their tongues.

God, the friends, like, are consistently hating Kyle now. That's right. Like, from the beginning. The friends knew, and now the group text is now the central, the spine of this. Wild. It's so interesting because in the original story, they all love Kyle. That's right.

But what they do do is they keep insisting, like, can we get a drink with Kyle? Can we do like a little mixer meet and greet? We really want to meet him since he's the one you're like on the edge of proposing, you know, that sort of thing. And Elliot is being like very dodgy. He's like, I got to go home. I haven't seen my parents in a while. You know, COVID's been a lot like I have all these like built up visitations I need to do. Life is getting in the way.

So Elliot leaves town, but he's like, when I get back, I promise you will meet Kyle. So Elliot leaves town. He comes back. Imagine him walking up to his apartment door. He's going to see his partner, his loving partner. They're about to continue their beautiful lives together. He opens the door. Apartment is empty. It is wiped out clean. Mr. Mistoffelees is nowhere to be seen as well. He's gone. Elliot freaks the fuck out.

He calls his friends. They again bite their tongues, even though clearly Elliot has been had. Like, he's been cleared out by this scammer of a partner.

Scammer. Scammer now. Okay, okay. So that was the first time the word scammer, I think, has appeared here. Scammer. Yeah. Scammer. This was a sweet, sweet story about a couple coming together. There was a proposal. They were going to be married at some point. And now it's, wow, now this is a scam podcast. Welcome back to Gossip Scams.

Yeah, gossip scams. Yeah, like in the original, it's very possible that they even had an entire breakup conversation. We don't know about that, but now it's like,

Kyle was a predator. That's right. Who was preying on Elliot. That's right. And the group tech, they knew from the beginning. They knew that something was up, but they just, you know, they believed in love too much. And they wanted to let their friend, you know, like, find love on their own. Oh my gosh. The friends are like, we're not going to pass judgment. We're not going to be hard on Elliot and the poor life choices he's made here. Cut to...

One of his friends in the middle of the night scrolling through TikTok, as one does, comes across a TikTok on their For You page. And it is this guy talking about how he catfishes people. His whole thing is that he pretends to be gay. Pretends to be gay. Okay, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. Okay. So now...

now it's full on it's like it's the con and

Kyle is now the hipster grifter. Like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's bragging about it. But why? Yeah, okay, let's make this make sense. Wait, why would you... You know what? We don't have time to break that down. Yeah, why would you tell that story on TikTok? If this is the grift of your choice, why would you talk about it? Oh, no. Oh, no. I mean, listen. I mean, it could be some sort of Anna Delvey situation where they're just like...

I need to make sure everyone knows I'm doing the crimes as I'm doing the crimes. And that way I have plausible deniability. Because why would I talk about the crimes when I'm doing the crimes? We're departing from reality. Yes, we are. He gets in these relationships. He's actually a very religious conservative person. And so he's catfishing these dudes to be in relationships with him. And...

It's all a sham. It's all a sham. And so then he goes into like, I recently did this to a guy. We got a cat together, Mr. Mistoffelees. And, uh, and then, and then I like took him for all he's worth. And actually like, it was a really bad toxic relationship.

And so the point at which I'm going to leave you on the story is the friends who I am passing judgment on are wondering, should we tell him about the TikTok or not? Finn. So the thing that I'm noticing here, actually, that I think is really interesting is that I think that the story is getting juicier.

but also the stakes feel lower somehow. Or like the story is getting less complicated, but also more shocking. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the story becomes backloaded with drama, right? Um,

But Elliot also just sort of like is like disappearing into this, you know, like Elliot almost doesn't matter anymore. Elliot is just a sweet dummy who fell in love. So we've done five. We have three more to go on this odyssey. The next one is Brian Park. Let's go.

Okay, so this is a story about two gay men named Elliot and Kyle. They both met on a dating app. Oh, the dating app. They met up for drinks. The chemistry was good. They're jiving. And all of a sudden, you know, one day turns into the next and they spend all their time together. Basically, over the course of three weeks, they went from total strangers to attached by the hip. Inseparable.

They spend all of their waking time together. And, you know, in the era of COVID, I literally mean all their waking time together. They're working remotely. They're inseparable. And the thing is, Elliot's friends have not met Kyle. And, you know, they pry. They send him texts like, hey, when are we going to meet Kyle? We'd love to meet him. Can we set up some drinks? And Elliot's being a little dodgy.

His friends are not concerned because Elliot has a tendency to be like this. He is very much the type of person to just go head first into relationships. So it isn't totally out of the ordinary, but Elliot announced to his friends, like, hey, we're actually moving in together.

That's a huge next step. And Elliot's friends start to become a little bit concerned because they're like, well, we've never met Kyle. And for you to suddenly, you know, tell us that you're going to live with this guy seems like a lot. But any case, you know, Elliot's friends keep pressing Elliot. Can we finally get drinks? Would love to meet Kyle. Elliot says, fine, fine, fine. We'll get drinks. But Elliot's

I'm going on vacation. I have to go visit my family and I'm going to turn it into a solo trip up to Seattle. Okay, so he's mega extending this trip. Okay, and now Elliot's just like straight up fishy. Yeah. Maybe they're both scammers. Maybe it's a scammer on scammer romance is what's happening now. Going to go up to Seattle, hike a bit and come back.

And I promise, pinky promise, we're going to get drinks and you'll finally meet Kyle. And you'll finally realize why I am so in love with this man. Wait, I just realized, is the cat gone now? I think the cat might be gone. The cat has fallen out of view. The cat might be there, but perhaps it's not full on Mr. Mistoffelees. Maybe it's more of a Greg situation now. Poor Mr. Mistoffelees.

So, you know, Elliot goes on his vacation. He comes back and, you know, he returns back to his apartment. But his apartment has been totally cleared out. Top to bottom. There's absolutely nothing left inside. Elliot's like, what the fucking fuck? Where's my shit? What is going on? Elliot texts Kyle. No response. Elliot then texts his friends.

You won't believe what happened. I come back to my apartment. Kyle isn't there. But every single one of my belongings are missing. I don't know what the fuck to do. What is happening? But the thing is, Elliot's friends have not met Kyle. So they don't realize

I don't really know what he looks like. I mean, they've seen photos, but... Wait, they have seen photos now. Okay, okay, so they've seen photos. They've seen photos, not of the cat, but of Kyle. Because the cat doesn't exist. But they're sort of vague-ish photos. Like, you know, maybe the face is a blur. I don't know. Maybe Kyle is just an enigma. He can't stand still long enough to be photographed in a consistent manner. Okay.

They don't know anything about him. His entire identity has been hidden and obfuscated from the rest of his friends. And so... Obfuscated. Elliot decides, I can't deal with this shit. I don't know what to do. I'm gonna fly back home and sort it out. So in the meantime, Elliot takes refuge back in the Bay Area with his family. And then...

One of Elliot's friends, Tyler. Tyler. Tyler. He's scrolling on TikTok and he comes across this TikTok about this guy's recounting this story of, you know, I fell head over heels for, you know, this really attractive blonde guy named Kyle.

Interesting. Okay, so the TikTok now is from somebody else talking about Kyle. And, you know, things were hot and heavy. One thing led to the next. We move in together. And then within one month of dating...

I went on a work trip, I come back, and my entire apartment is just completely empty. And it was a warning to other TikTokers, do not get involved with this man named Kyle. And Tyler reads the comments, and the TikTok community identifies Kyle as, for one, he's not actually a gay man, he is...

Like, he's just a scammer. Think in the realm of Anna Delvey or Elizabeth Holmes. Kyle is actually a Christian man who preys on homosexual men as a way to scam them from their belongings. Now, Tyler sees this and he's freaking out. And...

He texts the group chat, excludes Elliot, and is like, you gotta check this out. I think this is the same Kyle that our Elliot was involved with. Elliot's going through a really hard time. He's back home with his family. Should we tell Elliot about this TikTok? I don't know what the right course of action is. Wow. Okay. Wow. So...

We have just completely, we've crossed the veil into just completely nefarious, queer baiting, cons and scams. It's fascinating how quickly this turned into something that was a very sweet story into so sinister. Yeah.

So sinister. Yeah, and it makes me feel pretty bad for Kyle. And again, really glad that we anonymize well, because the version of the story that's like going out into the world is very, very, very different from what actually happened. The version of the story that it is right now, I'm...

pretty sure we would have a meeting and say, can we do this? Too dark. I think the answer would be like, this is too dark. This is too dark for us. We like...

the darkness that is like a kid wearing a squirrel hat, not you've been scammed by someone that believes that gay people shouldn't exist and sees stealing their things as God's divine right. So that's, yeah, putting my editor hat on, I would definitely be like, that's a no from me, dog. That's just, wow, okay, okay.

All right, we have two more. Okay. And basically one more until Kelsey gets to here. So this is Emma and Juchoi. All right, so...

There's this guy named Elliot, and he is passionate. He loves deeply and fast. And he meets this guy named Kyle, and he falls in love with Kyle. And within three weeks, he's like, I'm in love. And

I think by the end of a month, they're moving in together because Elliot is so in love with Kyle and Kyle is so in love with Elliot. But Elliot's friends have never met Kyle. But Elliot has told them all about Kyle. He's like, I love Kyle. You guys are going to meet him. And finally, his friends are like, okay, this is getting weird. When are we going to meet Kyle? And Elliot's like, you know what? I'm about to go home. I'm about to visit the Bay Area where my family is from.

And when I get back, I promise we will all grab drinks together and you will meet Kyle. And he's great. So he goes, he gets back home and

to his apartment where he's moved in with Kyle and Kyle is gone. And so is all of his stuff, bare apartment, echoing through the walls. He calls Kyle, he texts him, no answer. And he's like, oh my God, like I've been robbed. And he doesn't know what to do. And it's obviously Kyle because like Kyle's living with him. So he like texts his friends and he's like, guys, like, he's like, I don't know what to do. Like,

Like, I've been robbed by Kyle, my love. And the friends are like, I don't know what to do, Elliot. Like, we never met Kyle. We don't know what he looks like. He's like this blonde guy. They've seen pictures, but they've never, like, met this man. Which is a huge red flag, but whatever. Um...

And Elliot is totally heartbroken because he loved Kyle. So he's like, I gotta get away from it all. I'm gonna go back home to Seattle and I'm gonna decompress and I'm gonna process at home. And the Ferns are like, go do that. Okay.

an indeterminate amount of time later, one of Elliot's friends is scrolling through TikTok, like people love to do, and they see, like, one of those videos of a guy doing story time, and the guy is like, okay, something crazy happened to me. I dated this guy...

And we fell super in love so fast and we moved in together within the month, sound familiar? And I came back to my apartment one day and he had robbed me. He had taken all of my stuff.

And turns out the guy, his name is Kyle. Kyle was a super religious Christian guy. And he's not gay, quotation marks. And he does this to gay men. He like dates them, robs them, leaves them, ghosts them to like prove a point that you shouldn't be gay. And so if you meet this guy named Kyle, don't date him.

And Elliot's friend's like, okay, that's crazy. But, you know, Elliot doesn't know any of this. And Elliot is, like, super heartbroken and going through a really tough time and very fragile at home. So the question is, as Elliot's friend, what do you do? Okay. Okay, so...

We're in a situation now where the story's just been flattened, right? Mm-hmm. Like, it just shifts immediately into Scamville. Like, there's no chance that this was love. There's no chance that this was anything other than Elliot...

being caught in a web of evil deeds. And again, Elliot doesn't matter anymore. It's so weird how Elliot was like the person at the center of all this and now it's not just that Mr. Mistoffelees is gone. Yeah.

It's not that, like, Elliot's gone. Yeah, he's just like a flat, shapeless pawn in this evil manipulator's scamming scheme. I wonder if this just means that everybody feels like they identify with the group chat and they identify with the friends and saying, like, oh, this is who we choose to see as the narrator. And they end up having more things coming their way as a result of that.

Okay, so now I'm going to play the audio of Julia Furlan, our eighth guest, telling Kelsey the final story. So we're going to jump to that. My voice is also in that tape, so there's going to be two Alexes. But then Justin, you and I will come back and debrief after. Ready? Let's go. My turn. Are you ready to finally hear the story? Oh my god. Okay.

I just... I'm so ready. I feel like this has just been absolute torture for me to watch all the guests laugh and have a good time without me. So...

I can't wait. Julia, it seemed like you had a fun time. Let's go. I'm ready. I'm emotionally and physically prepared. Open your vessel because you're about to get poured into. Okay. So there are two people in this story. One, well, there are some more people, but anyway, there are two people that we are talking about here. Elliot and Kyle. Elliot meets Kyle. Elliot falls in love. It's like...

It's like a whirlwind romance. Elliot's like so in love. Kyle seems so great. Elliot's friends are like...

We're hearing all about this Kyle guy. And we would love to meet Kyle. Hello. And Elliot's like... Fucking fair. Yeah, right? Elliot's like, no. I have to go and do this thing with my family. Something, something going away. Basically, Elliot's like, I have to go out of town. But when I get back, when I get back, we're going to have the big...

hard launch of Kyle into, you know, maybe it's maybe Kyle's going on Instagram, you know, Kyle is coming into my life because Elliot and Kyle have decided to move in together after a month. Okay. But none of his friends, none of Elliot's friends have met Kyle. Not a one. Not a single one. And they're moving in together? No. Absolutely not. Nope. Nope. This is bad. Okay. So yes, you get it. Continue. Yes. Okay.

Elliot goes away, goes to see family, goes to do some stuff. Sure. Pre pre hard lunch. Yeah, exactly. Pre is ready for the hard lunch. You know, maybe Elliot has already like drafted some captions. Maybe Elliot's like already figuring out which photos are the ones, which narrative, you know, social media. Yeah, exactly. We're Elliot's an archivist organized, um, gets back to his apartment and,

And his voice is echoing on the walls. Where the fuck is Kyle? Where is Kyle's stuff? Yeah, that's right, Kelsey. Excuse me? That's right. Wait, so they move in together without him meeting any of his friends. He goes on his hard lunch pre-retreat. He returns to their apartment. He's like, honey, I'm home. Honey, I'm home. Honey, I'm home. Honey, I'm home. Nothing. Nothing.

Okay. Wow. Okay. Where the fuck is Kyle? That's my question. The screen goes to black. Open. Elliot's friend is laying in bed, looking at TikTok, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. How much time has passed? I'm going to say a couple weeks. Okay. All right. Sure. Elliot's friend...

Who did not get to meet Kyle. Bethesda, who really wanted to meet Kyle. Oh, Bethesda. So sorry for her. Bethesda is scrolling the talk, is like, what does the algorithm think about me? Because that's all I ever think about when I'm taking a nap. And then gets one of these story times. And it is this lovely gent saying, I love.

Was dating this guy. We got super hot and heavy really fast. I was so in love with him. After about a month, we decided to move in together. And then what happened, Kelsey? What do you think happened? No, he disappeared. Why? Yeah, disappeared. Because Kyle, motherfucker, is a far-right Christian who wants to teach a lesson to

To the homos. What? That's right. So Bethesda is just like looking at her little TikTok and she's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like this guy is talking about my friend who's been heartbroken for two weeks because this hottie abandoned him. No. Yeah, exactly. This is a serial situation. And now the question is, do you tell Elliot? Do I tell Elliot?

Elliot, who is going through a really hard time. Really hard breakup. I don't care. Really upset. I'm going to tell him. You know why? Because one, I have a little bit of resentment that I was not allowed to meet this man. That's right. Had I met him, perhaps I could have stopped all of this from happening. So a lesson for our friend Elliot to learn. You can't be a good friend unless you have all the information.

But two, it also changes the dynamics of your perception of that situation, right? If you're Elliot. Because if your boyfriend who you thought loved you just disappeared, then like that, I have a lot of questions about myself. I have a lot of questions about what I could have done to cause this. Whereas if my boyfriend is just like some right-wing propagandist evangelical who's creating drama and has ruined my life, now...

Now I have a vendetta and also a villain origin story. Exactly. And that's why we're here to be each other's witnesses to the villain origin story, you know? Of Elliot. Isn't that freaking wild? I don't understand how this happened. I don't understand how this happened either because this is not the true story. What?

The ninth version of the story is so far from the original, it is not even funny. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so excited. Can I read this? Can I read it to you now? Please, please, please. Okay. This is literally the script that I read to Danielle. So the first person. Yeah. Okay. Our friend of a friend is part of a group chat with college friends. This story concerns one friend named Elliot. Before the pandemic, Elliot started dating Kyle. Kyle had grown up- Okay, so you've got the names right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyle had grown up super religious and had been married to a woman, but he came out, left his family, left the church and moved to the city where he met Elliot. Everyone in the group chat was obsessed with Kyle. He was so warm, genuine and thoughtful.

So Kyle and Elliot move in together, adopt a cat, are teaching it all kinds of cool tricks. What? I can't believe the cat got lost. The cat got killed. Then Elliot proposes to Kyle and Kyle proposes back. It's so adorable. The pandemic hits and the group chat starts doing Zooms as you do. Usually significant others pop in and say hi and they all love to see Kyle.

Around June, Elliot mentions that he's going home for a bit. He doesn't mention Kyle. A few weeks later, the group Zooms and Kyle doesn't show up. They ask where he is. Elliot says, I didn't want to bring this up, but Kyle actually left me. Turns out Kyle just packed up and disappeared. Left the cat. No explanation. Ghosted his fiance. He disappeared off of social media. No one knows where he went. What?

Okay, this is also fucking crazy. I know.

Elliot is crushed. Fast forward a year later, our friend of a friend is scrolling TikTok and suddenly they see a viral video with Kyle. Turns out Kyle has reinvented himself on TikTok in the last year. He's super religious, but also very much still queer. And he seems to spend his videos making a lot of references to leaving a toxic relationship and loving yourself.

Our friend of a friend is like, what the fuck? Kyle has millions of views, tons of followers. Now we've tracked him down, but he's obviously obliquely talking shit about Elliot. So what do you do? Do you tell Elliot? I see. Okay. One completely different situation. Totally different situation. Totally different situation. Two.

You create many burner accounts and you ruin his life. Oh my God. Wow. What a journey this has been. I, you know, this was, this,

There's a couple of things that we could take from this. And for everybody listening at home, hopefully now you feel more a part of the story and anonymization process that is the backbone of normal gossip. But we can learn a couple of things here, which is that the human imagination is a wonderful thing. And also that details really do start to drift over time.

There was so much of this story that just got condensed and lost.

just like shed by the side of the road. Yeah. And I think that oftentimes when we receive stories from you all, we're often getting the second or third version already. So, you know, we're not going full like Kyle's an evil scammer because we like to have complicated people in our stories. But yeah, it is just a great reminder that like the gossip stories that we hear and that we trade in

They're a little bit far from the truth. They're far removed from the truth. And as we can see from this, sometimes the stories get far removed from reality. But, you know, I think there's parts of this that do very much hue close to what we do, which is that

You know, sometimes certain details are important. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes you actually need to have a scene. The crucial empty apartment scene was a hallmark in all of this. Sometimes you need important placement details, like apparently Kyle was from the Bay Area the whole time. But maybe it was Seattle, but maybe not. Mm-hmm.

Also timeline. People had a lot of questions and thoughts about the timeline. People had a lot of thoughts and questions about the timeline. There was the fact that there was a cat and then there wasn't a cat, which again, details that sometimes are important. Details that sometimes get changed. RIP to Greg, a.k.a. Mystery and Mistopolis. You were apparently a good Jellicoe cat, but not good enough to live. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Okay, well thank you so much for doing this with me, Justin, and for indulging my crazy brain. You have a creative brain, and it served us well in this, even though it turned into just a chorus of chaos by the end of it. Yeah, a journey into the unfiltered id of our guests of season two. Yeah.

So thank you to all of the guests and thank you to you, Alex. And thank you to everybody listening because now you get to see the journey that we get to take behind the scenes before all of this comes to you.

Thank you for listening to this bonus episode of Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at normalgossip at defector.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679-GOSSIP. If you love this podcast and you want us to keep making it, please consider becoming a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com.

You can follow me on all social media at Alex laughs and Kelsey's on all social media at McKinney Kelsey. This podcast was produced by me, Alex. Defectors projects editor is Justin Ellis. Our editor in chief is Tom lay. Jay toll is our production assistant. Thanks to Kelsey for being so patient and such a good sport this season. While I got to gossip without her,

And thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. I'm Alex Sujong Laughlin, and remember, you did not hear this from me.