Kirstie Alley On The Verge Of Failure

Undaunted by the recent Twitstorm she created, Kirstie Alley made good on her threat promise to launch a podcast.

Taking us over three hours to get through, it was a long 48 minute show.

Kirstie Alley On The Verge had an opening sequence with a seriously Scientology-esque vibe. Anyone who has glimpsed any COS promotional video will no doubt experience a jolt of deja vu between the dramatic music and the strangely familiar introductory voice. We seriously expected to hear David Miscavige introduced.

While we don’t recommend the entire production, listening to the first 30 seconds is interesting.

In case there were any doubts as to whom the podcast belonged, Kirstie Alley’s name is mentioned 4 times in the first 30 seconds.

Less than two minutes in, the listener is treated to a Scientology favorite; “What’s true for you” as Alley attempts to explain the premise of the podcast. For her, this will be an opportunity to express her truth and get her point across. Something, according to Kirstie, she’s never gotten an opportunity to do in the thousands of interviews she’s been involved with.

Alley quickly moves on making comments that will provide the foundation for a running theme throughout the show; the bullying of and misconceptions about her.

Describing several examples of Twitter members’ accusations that she’d been rude or mean when they’ve met her, she takes several minutes to describe away the situations her disgruntled commenters referred to. Much like how Scientology denies any responsibility or ownership when accusations are made against the cult, Alley defaults to either an “I don’t remember that” or a sarcastic “well that’s just not me” excuse.

Alley cites the fact that she meets thousands of people and can’t be expected to remember every single situation while for the fan, they will of course remember the interaction because she is one of the few celebrities the fan has probably ever met. This is true, in her defense. However rather than doing damage control and attempting to perhaps apologize for a misunderstanding, she presents herself as the wronged party and the accuser just mean or ridiculous. There is a subtle passive aggressive defensiveness to the way she addresses these interactions.

About 12 minutes later her co-host Corey steps in and redirects her, pointing out that over two thousand people responded to who they would like to see on the show and asked her how she felt about such a response.

Incidentally no mention was made of the many who responded they’d like to hear Mike Rinder and Leah Remini.

Rather than answering, she began rambling about why she joined Twitter in the first place.

Fifteen minutes in the subject changes yet again as Kirstie announces “I’m not a ‘current eventer’ I’m a person who’s either working, you know, making a show or working or I’m a person who’s decorating something or whatever. Putting a party together or doing a charity event.”

Perhaps she is remembering her 2011 appearance at the Long Island Remembers 10th Anniversary tribute for 9/11.

Throughout her commentary there are copious references to her celebrity status.

In the midst of listing her accomplishments Alley seemingly remembers her earlier comment about not being a “current eventer” and attempts to recollect her train of thought by bringing up Billie Eilish.

Corey mentions that Eilish is being blasted for a recent picture seen online. He states that half of the viewers who have weighed in on the picture have body shamed the singer.

Kirstie Alley responded “but when you said that about Billie Eilish and showed me that picture it really did remind me of (pause) you know, I know Billie Eilish always wears clothes that are huge and that’s sort of her M.O. in her dress and stuff and I just wonder, like, is she dressing like that because she doesn’t want to get (pause) comments? Did she say anything about that?”

Corey agreed that Eilish’s choice of dress was so that people would not judge her solely based on her body. Alley replied “Right. I know. But sorta, we’re in the wrong business aren’t we, for that? ‘Cause…(long pause)”

As this thought was never finished the listener will never really know where she was going. Instead she bounced back to an earlier subject that had been left dangling; how Twitter has impacted her life, though this is a brief visit.

Alley missed a chance to address a serious issue that even she has had to endure; the body shaming of women. Perhaps her avoidance of the subject is because she is aware that Leah Remini just endured this same insidious form of bullying at the hands of her church’s ordained Minister, Edward Parkin.

Listening to Alley talk, one begins to understand one way in which Twitter has affected the former actress. Time and again she brings up the personal attacks she endures on the social media platform.

Kirstie derisively talks about tweets in which she’s referred to as a Boomer and one can almost hear her eyes rolling.

“Boomer”

“I can’t even imagine saying to my grandfather if he said something, like ‘OKAY World War One-er’, ‘OKAY, Boomer’, ‘OKAY, Depression Liver Through-er”.

She stutters and stumbles for a bit until she finds another coherent thought; “the word is non respectful!”

Ironically after making such a show of disgust over anyone using such a “non respectful” appellation she continues, “I just can’t imagine some of these things that these people, these Millennials say to other people!”

Twenty minutes into the podcast and Alley has spent the majority of her time stuttering, bouncing from idea to idea and making certain her audience knows she’s a busy, in demand actress.

Her co-host Corey, on the other hand presents himself as intelligent, coherent and informed. He is a calm voice to her manic, nervous ramblings; focused in contrast to her scatter brained responses.

The subject returns to Kirstie being bullied on Twitter. Listeners are treated to an extended discussion of her being advised to “go eat a hamburger”, something that obviously left a permanent impression. Once again Corey steps in and redirects Alley by introducing a new topic; her talent for decorating.

Here the podcast becomes a focused few moments as Kirstie talks about her time doing interior decorating. She actually offers some sound advice; stay away from “theme rooms!”

Finally, as the end draws closer Alley touches on the subject of politics and it is here that, if we are honest and fair, Kirstie actually pulls herself together and shows some honest passion. This is not an endorsement on her politics. It is simply a comment on her performance as she tackled the subject.

Amazingly, in spite of admitting that she’d never met Trump before, she states that before he began actually campaigning she visited him.

According to Alley she asked him “‘are you really doing this’ and he replied ‘yeah, I’m really doing this'”.

In spite of such a momentous meeting between two people who didn’t know each other, one of whom was about to run for the highest office in the land, Kirstie claims she doesn’t remember anything she asked him during their meeting. She does remember coming away from the visit thinking “wow, he’s really an interesting guy!”

“I think the main thing I came away with was that he’s gonna get things done. Like him or not he’s gonna get things done!”

Whether or not her politics are sound, she was actually speaking well during this segment until she fell back to her forte and brought the discussion around to her again.

Corey asked her when she became involved in politics to which she answered, “I don’t think I went all in until about a year ago and I felt like I really had observed the different things that had also happened to me along the last four years on sets. For example in Los Angeles, in Hollywood and the landscape of what I consider to be so far to the left it’s insane.”

She alleged that while on one unnamed set two producers took her aside and cautioned her about speaking up for Trump.

“If people knew we were pro-Trump we would be canned”.

The actress states that it was this and other similar experiences, including an atmosphere of fear of losing one’s livelihood that finally decided her to start speaking out against what she calls “Team Cancel Culture”. Further, she expresses her concern about who will next hire her because of her views.

All in all Kirstie Alley’s first podcast was an unorganized mess with a few moments of clarity. Instead of using this introductory episode to introduce herself and outline her goals going forward she was all over the place with no real apparent purpose. For the most part she sounded unsure, giddy at times and defensive. Had it not been for Corey guiding her back from the brink of redundancy she may well have petered out before her allotted time was up.

In fairness, maybe in time she’ll collect herself and create something of substance. It will be interesting if she carries through on her promises to address the various topics she noted on Twitter such as her “enemies”, her religion and what many believe are veiled references to confronting Leah Remini.

If Alley doesn’t get her act together and the first show is anything to go by, this podcast may not last long enough to get there.

This is going to take a lot of hard work to go from something resembling a middle school production to a professional talk show.

Right now Kirstie Alley is on the verge of ending before she’s begun.