"Amy Griffin's Story Didn't Add Up" Bryan Jennings Was At The Dance!

Hi and welcome to Hot Mikes. Please hit subscribe. This is an exclusive today. In March 2025, the New York Times bestselling memoir, The Tell, dropped with immense praise and fanfare for its author, Amy Griffin, a wealthy but sweet, humble girl from Amarillo, Texas, who moved to the big city after college and married a man worth billions of dollars today. In 2017, she started her own fund to empower female founders, and they all showed up, from Goop to Spanx to Bumble and Hello Sunshine. Her contribution to the world was financial backing of women-led enterprise, pretty good and a nice thing to be known for, but only by those in the know. Her closest friends these days are A-list household names. Then she came forward with her deeply personal story of childhood sexual abuse, a harrowing account of being violently raped by a middle school teacher starting at 12, concluding at 16, a jaw-dropping and nightmarish account recovered 30 years later through psychedelic assisted therapy. The woman who seems to have it all, billionaire, investor, amazing kids, husband marriage, the right clubs, the right boards, and courageous childhood sexual assault survivor. You think you know somebody, right? Well, her gut-wrenching story was embraced and propelled forward by her A-list cabal of friends. The first interview was Oprah. The rest followed. They interviewed her, they toured with her, they posted about her with words like courageous, inspiring, empowering, and Amy delivered what every publishing company who gives a million-dollar advance craves, a built-in marketing machine. It had everything except vetting. Ironically, the New York Times felt something was off with one of its bestsellers. Very few dots were connecting. There was no corroboration from even one friend or acquaintance from that time in Amarillo, Texas, 1988-89. The alleged assailant of Amy's taught there at the school for 30-plus years and lives in Amarillo still. No other instance is reported. The most mysterious element in the pages of the tell is Amy's constant reference to a classmate from those days whom she felt an eerie connection to, more specifically an underlying fear and suspicion that that girl, too, had been assaulted by the same wolf in sheep's clothing. She was not wealthy like Amy. She was a foster care kid with blunt-cut fangs whom she lent a floral dress to for the school dance. Amy called this girl Claudia in the book to protect her identity. The New York Times investigated Amy's story and turned up more suspicion, loose ends, and then they turned up a woman from Amy's middle school class who was a foster kid with blunt-cut fangs who said she borrowed a floral dress for the Austin Days school dance that year and, most alarmingly, told the reporter, Amy's story sounds eerily familiar. That happened to me. That woman is named Jolene Altham. A judge has reviewed preliminary findings in the matter and has given Jolene the green light to sue Amy for invasion of privacy, painting her in a false light and the intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. According to Jolene's lawyer, her memories were not recovered under psychedelic drugs. She has lived them every day. According to Jolene's lawyer, her memories were not recovered under psychedelic drugs. She has lived them every day. Jolene's account differs from Amy's. First, it was a different teacher. The one she claims assaulted her skipped town, as one might after such an event, you'd think. But her lawyers know where the guy is. Two, that Claudia that you write about as sort of a half-alibi, half-inspiration, is me. Jolene says she fits the description to a T and several others, classmates from that time, corroborate that in declarations for her case. Also, there are witnesses from the aftermath of her alleged assault at that dance who can corroborate key elements of her story. Amy has no corroboration. One of those witnesses who filled out a declaration of testimony on Jolene's behalf is the boy whose parents helped run the foster home she lived in and the boy who took her to that dance and in whom she confided after returning disheveled and a bit undone from a long and noticeable absence with her alleged assailant on the night of that dance some 36, 37 years ago. Right now, we welcome Brian Jennings. He is that boy from eighth grade. You read the book. When did this strike you as odd? When I first read Amy's book, the first thing that came to mind was this story seems really familiar, and it's not because I've heard it from Amy. It's because I remember Jolene telling me about several points of what happened to her that night, and then when we talked about it again later a couple days after. When you read the book and read the account that Amy gave, did you message Jolene on Facebook and say, what did you say to her? I reached out and was like, hey, have you read this book? Because it really sounds like what you told me that night. It kind of gave me like an annoying feeling of like, there's no way that this is a coincidence that I'm reading this story and reimagining what she had talked to me about that night. I'm going to read from your declaration here or pull from your declaration that you filled out as testimony for her. You said Jolene was summoned by one of the male teachers at the school. You recall seeing the two of them disappear together alone and leave the public area of the dance, and you see Jolene return to the dance sometime later, and her hair and clothes were tussled. You saw her leave the area, and did you see, you saw her and the teacher leave. Do you know who the teacher is? I believe I am aware of the identity of that person. Is it Mr. Mason who is written about in the book, or is it someone else? No, it's not. It's not the person who characterizes Mr. Mason. In Amy's book, okay. Right. No, we were there at the dance together because really there were only, it was a dance for the eighth graders, and we were the only two real eighth graders that were participating in the dance from the children's home, so we obviously rode together. She was one of the few people that I considered myself close to. I had other friends like Jodi Shelton, for example, but she was one that I was particularly close friends with, and so a boy, early teenage boy, doesn't have a lot of social charisma. He's going to hang out with whoever it is that he came to the dance with, and that was Jolene, and then when she left, it was just kind of, she was standing next to me one minute, and the next thing I know, she's starting to walk out of the cafeteria, which is where the dance was, and down the hallway, and you know, there's an adult teacher there with her walking away, so I mean. You say when they returned, her hair and clothes were tussled, and after the dance, you're waiting for the ride to take you back to the children's home, and you asked her about that disappearance. Can you recall the moment, and what did you say to her? Hey, what's going on with you? You know, why are you all like messed up? Because, you know, girls, when they get ready to go something like a dance, they, you know, want to make sure that they look cute, and you know, things that girls do, and then all of a sudden, she looks like, you know, she had tumbled around downstairs or something, like everything was out of place, and disheveled, and I was like, you know, what's going on, and she was just kind of like, hey, this happened, and I was like, you know, you really should go tell an adult, and she kind of, you know, blew me off, which I didn't really understand at the time. Did she seem deeply upset, unnerved, panicky, sweaty, you know, quickening breath, talking like something horrible had happened? She seemed out of sorts, like just not her normal, you know, just normally she was quite quiet, and reserved, and just kind of, you know, kept to herself, but it wasn't like, help me, help me, I'm, you know, I'm in trouble. It was just she was telling me matter-of-factly, and at the time, you know, my teenage brain is just kind of trying to process the information. Do you think she's, you know, because she doesn't want you to be alarmed, or, you know, or she's just trying to soften the blow for a 13-year-old boy? Do you feel like she had, was there some, did she have a crush on this teacher, and maybe in her mind it wasn't as horrible as it clearly is? I mean, that's definitely possible. I, you know, I'm not presuming to know exactly what is going through her mind, because you'd have to ask her that, but it wasn't, it wasn't somebody who was, you know, had been upset. Huh. Did she have an adult to tell? I mean, I know she's at the children's home, so. What I didn't include in that statement is that I lived at the children's because my parents were house parents there. There were, there are about six, I think six or seven cottages within the children's home campus, and my parents oversaw one of those cottages, and so myself and my sisters, you know, lived on campus with the kids. So she could have told your parents, or another set of parents. She could have told her house parents. She could have told, there's all sorts of other adults that work on campus that preside over house parents when, let's say, a house parent couple goes on a vacation, you know, they have other adults that act as house parents in the meantime. So there's, you know, literally in one particular house, there's probably three, sometimes four adults working in a cottage at a time. Ah, so she did. You also write, Brian, about, you say, I believe that others at our school were also aware at the time that there had been sexual contact between Jolene and the teacher at the Sadie Hawkins dance. Jolene confirmed this to me as well a short time after the dance. So kids, they had a sense, you know, kids can pick up on things. Were there whisperings about this, or, you know, as you, in the ensuing weeks and months and the rest of the year, were kids, like, kind of talking about it under their breath? It's hard to get past at that age. I mean, the other thing to remember is that this dance happened right at the tail end of the school year. And so, you know, people, people, people would be talking about, you know, hey, what, you know, what happened? What happened to you at the end of, you know, this? Or, hey, why did this person end up, you know, looking like a hot mess at the end of the dance? And, you know, kids just tend to speculate. And there's conversations, you know, you can hear all sorts of things. People will be like, oh, you know, so now those two are dating, and there may be no truth to any of those things, but people talk. I'm wondering because, you know, the book is called The Tell that Amy Griffin wrote, but one tell as to how she might have recalled these memories and made them her in a much more violent and sort of dressed up fashion, dramatized fashion. Is that her 12 year old, 13 year old mind had stored away a very unsettling story from that time. And it manifested, you know, after the MDMA assisted therapy as hers and worse. Yeah, no, that's definitely plausible. I mean, like I said, I don't presume to know what anybody else knows or doesn't know, but there's always, you know, kids get home from going out to do something. And, you know, the next day, people are like, oh, are you two dating? You know, because that had happened to me before. Amy Griffin and Jolene claim the same story here, but it features two different alleged assailants. Both claim he wore cowboy boots and had a big belt buckle. Can you talk me through a little bit how you landed on two possible gym coaches rather than Amy's pseudonymized Mr. Mason? What ruled him out for you, this teacher? You mean what ruled out Amy's? Yeah. Amy's account that Mr. Mason, who everybody knows, everybody knows his real name. You know his real name. He's a teacher for over 30 years in Amarillo. Why can't it be him or is it unlikely that it's him? Well, first, I never saw Amy's Mr. Mason there. Doesn't mean he wasn't there, but I didn't see him there. Oh, at the dance? And the other person that would be Jolene's assailant was there. And I had classes with actually both Mr. Mason and this other person. So it'd be very easy for me to pick them out of a lineup, even if we're just talking about that back of their heads. The physical description of cowboy boots and belt buckle, could that be, did Mr. Mason walk around with cowboy boots and a belt buckle? Well, I mean, it's Amarillo. You're in West Texas. The chances of teachers walking around in cowboy boots and possibly wearing a belt buckle with their clothes, I mean, boots and jeans are a common everyday attire when it comes to living in Amarillo. What about your former classmates? Do you guys have like a Facebook group where people have sort of reconnecting, like, holy ----, guys, this book came out. I mean, did it bring people together in some kind of chat room situation or something? Has there been talk with other classmates? I mean, most of the talk that I've experienced as far as that goes has been person to person. People who we've reconnected on Facebook have talked. The conversation has not really surfaced there as much. Is Amy in it? I don't even believe she has a Facebook, to be honest with you. And there's also the possibility that I'm sure some of her friends that she's kept in touch with after high school are not, I mean, some of them might be some aren't on social media, at least not anything that anybody recognizes. The friends you speak to, you know, and Jody Shelton is one. He's filled out a declaration. But, you know, anyone else from the class is there. Do people share a common belief or common disbelief about this situation? Or is there anyone that says, oh, I remember Mr. Mason, he was a total creep. This could have happened. I feel like there's a lot more of it kind of ebbs and flows depending upon the day and what new information comes to light. But it feels like it floats between like a 40, 60, 60, 40. You know, really, there's as much as 40 percent people who think that Amy is telling the truth. Well, I mean, there are at least 40 percent who aren't stating their opinion. So you don't you don't know. Oh, there's they're sick. There's generally 60 percent of any group that. They all have an opinion and whether they make it known in a group chat or they just send you a message and say, hey, what do you think? You know, everybody's a true crime sleuth these days. Yeah. Brian Jennings is with us. Brian took Jolene Altom to the eighth grade dance called the Austin Day Dance at the end of middle school. And this is where she says she was assaulted by a teacher or a sexual encounter happened with a teacher. It is the same dance where Amy Griffin says something happened to her. It is part of why they are in dueling lawsuits with each other. But Brian has filled out a declaration on Jolene's behalf, corroborating much of her account that something happened that night, that he remembers seeing her disappear, that she was tussled when she returned and that she said something happened. There was sexual contact with the teacher and herself. So he's he's a he's a primary witness, I guess, for her, at least in that regard. Amy's credibility in the book is being questioned. It was by the New York Times in a massive investigation. But you do describe Amy as the daughter of helicopter parents, that her parents were very involved. They were like PTA type parents, bear parents or whatever, you know, you call them. They ran the cotillion. They were very heavily involved and very present at all times, which makes her being alone on campus with a teacher multiple times to be violently assaulted hard to even harder to comprehend. Explain what what she was like herself in school, her parents, her environment. And please don't forget to include I'm you mentioned to me how at one point she was very nice. She did something very nice for you. Yeah, well, so as far as the helicopter parents part of this, to be honest, it felt like there were a lot of. Parents that were in that same wealthy group of parents that are families that all lived in that area where where Amy lived seemed like most of them were a single income household where there was one parent who was. Daddy was very, very, very wealthy position or something where they were making a good amount of money, upper middle class for the most part. And then one parent, most of the time it was the mother was was at home. And so taking care of the children. Yeah, I would say that the majority of the people that fall into that that group from middle school there, there were a lot of helicopter parents because they were involved in everything. They showed up for everything that the parents were in. They had all these an excellence. I think it was the Excellence Council, Austin Excellence Council. There was the the Bear Parent Organization. And these these parents were all, you know, heavily involved in what what their kids were were doing and where they were at. And she was the opposite of Jolene at the time. If you look at this, if latchkey kid were the middle, you know, Jolene is in a foster children's home and she has guardians looking after her. She's not a single parent home. She's a no parent home, but they didn't. Yeah, they didn't let they didn't let the responsibility is running the schedule and children's care. And so I would I would say that most of the people that fit in that were were actually helicopter parent families. So it wasn't just like Amy's Amy's parents were helicopter parents. It was kind of that was the way the people who were able to live that type of lifestyle were. And then I've heard that from another. Yeah, I've heard that from another person who who who spoke to me because his best friend was a neighbor of the Mitchells, which is Amy's maiden name. Yeah. The Mitchells for 50 years and sort of shared the same same account. Well, I used to I used to live papers in that in that neighborhood. And so it was it was very evident that that they they didn't live the same as those of us who lived in other neighborhoods, even adjacent neighborhoods, because the children's home there was there's a street that kind of separates 34th Street that separates where the children's home is. And then everything north of that is basically the Austin school area. And the primary neighborhood immediately north of that and to the east was all those people. They all had, you know, nice, nice homes, very nice homes, very wealthy. Amy describes being assaulted in the locker room under the bleachers in a classroom in the you know, at the dance, multiple locations, it seems, you know, on that many occasions, especially to be left alone in the school hallways and in a bathroom with the public get, you know, kids bathroom with a teacher that would have to be after hours or something. And, you know, I, given what you've described, unlikely, but not doesn't mean, because there's great supervision at home, that something can't happen, right at school or off campus, especially multiple times. But from what you remember, of that school in those times, would you just say unlikely? Well, the other part of that is that, that Austin would basically unless unless somebody was there for a specific, you know, like there was some sort of band practice, choir practice, athletic team event, that place was alone, because because there would be times where, for example, my parents would be on vacation from working at the children's home, and I would have to walk. Because I didn't, I didn't ride the van back to campus, because I'd have to wait for my parents to pick me up. And so being stuck, being stuck at Austin, and not having an immediate time to get anywhere. Once, once school had gotten dismissed, and all the kids had been picked up that were getting picked up by bus or by parent, that place was a ghost town. But getting back to Amy, you know, Amy and I were also classmates, because we were all all in eighth grade together. She, she was always very nice. In particular, she had been nice to me. There had been a situation where I had asked a different girl, not either one of the girls in this particular story, out to go to a Valentine's event that was being held at my church. And she had turned me down. And Amy found out about it, and reached out to me and offered to, to go so that I didn't, you know, I didn't get to miss out on the event that I was wanting to go to, which was an incredibly kind gesture. But yeah, I, I never really forgot that. And, you know, we had, but the offer was, was very nice. It shows really good character, frankly. Yeah. And, and when I read the, you know, when I read the beginning of the book, and she's talking about, you know, the whole, the whole point of it all is that we're, we're supposed to be nice. You know, that's the whole point of life. And I was like, yeah, no, I totally am identifying this. And then, you know, the further I read into the book, once we got to the, to the, the explicit parts, I was like, like, kind of made me disillusioned after I finished the whole book, because I'm like, here's Amy, a person that I had up until then, the utmost respect for and even gratitude for what it, what she had tried to do for me in eighth grade, tarnished, because, like, I knew this story, and it wasn't from her about the, about the assault. And so then it was like, okay, do I really know her? Because there's, you know, that it's just such a opposing, opposing points there, where there's this one Amy that I knew, and this other Amy that I clearly didn't know. And then what, what parts are, what parts of it are real? What, what, what of it is, you know, what else, what else do I not really know that I thought I, it made me call into question a lot of things, you know, talking to some of my other friends from eighth grade. Just like, it was very, it's very painful to think about the fact that you don't really know everyone that you think you know, even the ones that you feel like, you have a good grasp on who they are as a person. Because up until that point, all the other, all the other accolades, you know, pretty popular, smart, you know, very nice person, you know, great, great person to, to talk to, and very friendly. All were true. And then after reading that other part of the book, I was just like, I don't know. I don't know who she is. I don't. Yeah. Brian Jennings read to tell when it came out. Did you read, what prompted you to read ain't your former classmate, Amy Mitchell. Now, Amy Griffin's book, was it, how, how did you hear about it? Was it, did you hear about it when it came out or was it after the New York times several months later did their investigation, which, you know, cast a scrutinizing I, I did what a lot of people my age do if they don't, I mean, I read, but I don't, I'm not like voracious or anything. I'm not one of those ones. Who's like, I did 40 books this month. I, you know, I'll see a book that I want to read and I'll buy it. And then it'll sit on my coffee table until I'm like, you know what, I have nothing better to do. I might as well go ahead and read this since I bought it. And so that's basically what happened was I, I'd heard about it when it came out and, you know, seen, seen her on, on with Oprah and was like, wow, that's somebody I know. That's somebody, you know, thinking back to the positive thoughts I had about Amy and her and her personality. And it was like, you know, I, I should read it. Not really, not really not really paying attention to what the book was about. It was just, I know that author I'm going to read, I'm going to read their book. So when you got to the part of a belt buckle hitting the floor, my head being slammed against the wall, a bandana tying my hands behind my back threatening. If you tell anyone, I'm going to rip your teeth out. You're hearing all these graphic details of violent rape and assault. And you're thinking, Jesus, that is a classmate of mine. Those are the, that's the school I went to the halls. I walked down, uh, holy crap. Did it hit you as horror and deep sympathy for Amy? What was that? Or was it what? I mean, what kind of emotion was the first thing you felt reading the words? I, I was, it was fairly unsettling until, until the part of my brain that's like, why, why does this seem like deja vu? Why are you, why do you feel like this is, you know, this seems familiar, but it shouldn't seem familiar because, you know, Amy and I never had any conversations where anything remotely close to this would have come up and like, why is, and by the time I got to the end of the book, I was like, you know, it had occurred to me that it was Jolene. And so then I'm just like sitting there for the longest time. It probably took me a full weekend plus to just like, let that sink in and absorb what I had just ingested with my eyes. And this is all before the New York times investigation. I don't, I don't remember reading that article before then, but you messaged Jolene after reading the book and taking the weekend, you sent, Hey, you know, have you read this? Cause this doesn't seem, this, this seems like something we've had a conversation about. This seems like, this seems like a story that you've told me. And I just kind of left it at that. And then a while later, and I don't, I don't remember exactly how long it was after that. When she had Zach Rosenblatt call me to ask me if I wanted to sign an affidavit to that. So she never responded. You, you heard, you, you sent a message to her and you heard back Zach saying, well, Hey, she actually, she actually sent me like a text message saying, Hey, do you mind if my lawyer calls you? And then, you know, basically, Hey, look out for this area code. Got it. And so then, then he called me and we talked about it and he, you know, we, we walked through what my recollection was and what I was willing to sign my name to on the affidavit. And then he sent me a copy. I looked it over and signed it. Well, I'm assuming that you probably don't think that two girls from your eighth grade class suffered the exact same story. Do you think the details even for Jolene they're really graphic? They're like, I mean, they're there. It's a, it's an alarming tale. When you read her descriptions of what happens, it's almost extremely jarring. You can't put it down. Do you imagine that, that, that, that was landscaped or that might've happened? I mean, it's entirely possible. Sam Lansky is the ghost, right? From my perspective, it seems like, um, there's, there's a story there, but as I would imagine, is the case when, you know, somebody writes, somebody writes, uh, uh, uh, a book and they're not experienced at writing a book. Uh, and someone's like, Hey, I want to make that in a movie. They go and say, okay, what can we do to make this something that people are going to want to come watch? All she had to do was say loosely based on experiences, not a memoir of my, and then take to a world tour and accept people's praise and commendation as empowering, courageous, inspiring that platform. If she had just said, you know what, I'm going to write a story loose based on something I recall that feels familiar to me. And then write a story. She'd have a, still have a number one bestseller, but not necessarily the platform, you know, the, that comes with it to stand on as a, you know, self-identified victim survivor. I don't know what, what to think of Amy at this point. Cause I don't know, I don't know what's true and real and what's, what's just a part of her, you know, myth, legend, whatever you want to call it. In fairness, Brian, I know a lot of people who know her and say she is still nice and, uh, and, and, you know, how this came to be. And, uh, the details are at least at the very least, uh, confusing. Um, but she is literally, everybody I've spoken to has said a nice person. Um, so unfortunately Mr. Mason, who has a real name, uh, probably feels differently. And maybe, you know, a few other men who are in the book as well. Mr. Mason's not the only assailant in her life. She had, uh, another experience four years or two years into college. So it's definitely a riveting read, but it has invited all kinds of scrutiny. And you are one of about seven people who have filled out declarations on behalf of Jolene from those days and her later life, as she went on to work in an advocacy, uh, capacity for children who are victims of adult sexual abuse. So she's kind of lived the life. And as her lawyer said, Jolene doesn't need psychedelic drugs to recover these memories. She has lived them every day. Uh, but an Amy on her part has no corroboration of any of these accounts. Nobody, as Martha Stewart said, when she interviewed Amy, wait, no one was there. No one ever saw anything. You never told anyone anything from 12 to 16. So it, it, it's just a great big mystery. And I have such a hankering for the truth. I have no desire to pursue or injure Amy Griffin or try to, I just am now so fascinated with what the truth is. Um, especially as lives have been mal-affected here. So what do you hope happens, Brian? What, what, what, what, what do you see is should happen here? Well, my, my, my perspective is that first off, I, I don't have, I've not had any contact with Amy since we graduated in 1994 from high school. Uh, I don't ever anticipate having any contact with her because she left Emeril in the dust and clearly wanted, wanted bigger and better things for herself. And I, you know, more power to her. Um, I just, uh, and I honestly don't, I don't hate I'm disappointed because I thought I knew somebody and clearly this has shown me that I don't know the person as well as I thought I did. But, but do you hold out at least a little bit of possibility that everything she's saying happened? I just, at the end of the day, want, uh, people to take, take either responsibility for their actions or say, you know what, I miss Beau. And, you know, maybe, maybe we don't trust them anymore when they say things in the future. I just want her to, um, just be completely honest for a second with, with herself and with, uh, other people, because it went from, Hey, you took my story on Jolene's part to planting yourself in the ground saying there's no way that anything Jolene is saying is true. And, uh, I'm being attacked. And Jolene was never going to come out. I mean, I don't think she was a person that was ever going to go and, and hammer away. And she was going to let it all go. You know, if her story is true, the teacher that would have gotten away with it is now going to not likely get away with it. Well, you saw his ---- in his pants somewhere. Jolene was very, uh, confused at the time. She didn't see it as something that was something to panic over. And she clearly still doesn't. She just wants to move on with her life. She was fine until somebody, somebody told her story, claiming it as their own. And then it's like, I want, I want to live my life the way I want to live it. And now you're forcing me to do something I didn't want to do in the first place, which to me, you know, people that I know that have been abused a lot of the time, they just want, they want to forget about it, move on, never talk about it again. I mean, I, I totally have no problem with people wanting to get, you know, get justice for, you know, actions taken against them or against someone that they love, but when, when you just, the only way you feel like you can have peace is to be able to go on with your life. And in Jolene's case, go help other people who've been through similar situations because she identifies with it. She knows, she knows that end of things. I just like that. That's what breaks my heart is that Jolene's not able to have the closure that she wanted to have. Brian Jennings, here we are, the California suit of Jane Doe, which we all know is Jolene because Amy has named her in a Nevada suit, but Jane Doe versus Amy Griffin is going forward on four different counts, false light, invasion of privacy, infliction of both intentional and negligent emotional distress. That's going forward. Amy tried to have that tossed out and, and the judge rejected that. So it will proceed unless they settle or there's an appeal on Amy's part. I believe, I think, I think there will be a settlement. I think she should. On the other side, Amy is, you know, has got her federal suit against Jolene for defamation. Jolene just filed to have that thrown out because it basically has the same details as California. And she says it's designed to drain her of resources because she is a defendant in that case. So we are going to, that's where we are legally in the whole thing. But in the case of California, where it is going forward, Brian Jennings filled out a declaration. He was there that night of the eighth grade dance, the Austin Day dance. He witnessed Jolene leave and come back, disheveled, and they had a conversation about it. And anyway, he is on record for her. Brian, I can't thank you enough. It's not easy to go back 36, 37 years and speak as eloquently as you have about that time for your friend. And I do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on Billy. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share some deeper insight into some of the parts that aren't getting talked about with this whole Okay, my friend, folks, thanks for listening to Hot Mics. Please hit subscribe. Bye-bye.