-We're excited that you're here.
-I'm happy to be here. I'm always happy to be here.
-I know. I love having you.
I want to talk about this docuseries.
'Cause I'm -- honestly, I'm obsessed.
I'm freaking out. -It's pretty -- it's juicy.
It's good. -It is intense.
But first, how is the family? How are the little babies?
-They are so good. They're keeping us so busy.
They just -- Luna just turned 6, and Miles is about to turn 4.
And I can't believe it. -Come on.
-Yeah. -Is that right? Already.
-Yeah, it's so cool, though. -6 and 4.
-Yeah, but they couldn't be more different from each other.
But it's like it keeps us on our toes all day.
I truly love it. It's so fun.
-You told me that Miles is learning how to play baseball.
-Yeah, he's playing tee-ball now, which is so cool,
'cause I loved baseball growing up, so...
-And does he understand the rules?
-No, not at all. -Okay, yeah.
-No. He's like a blank --
I mean, imagine going into it blindly.
Like, he literally doesn't --
he's never seen a baseball game before.
You'll be like -- his coach will be like, "Go to first base,"
and he's like, "I don't know what first base is!"
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, "I don't --" yeah.
-He's just a little guy. -It's a tricky game to just
put on and be like, "All right," and try to explain
while it's happening. It's too tricky.
-No, it is. And honestly, they have --
They have him play, like, every different...
-Position. -...every position.
And they were like, "Miles is gonna play first,"
and I was like, "Are you sure about that?
The ball's always gonna go to him."
But he did, and he -- I don't know.
We have fun watching. We'll say that.
[ Laughter ]
-You brought us a very cute clip of Miles getting --
was it his first hit? -Yeah, it was his first hit.
And I -- oh, my God, it was so --
It was really -- -So he hits the ball
and then doesn't quite know what --
-He doesn't know what to do. -Of course.
-We haven't explained it to him. -Yeah.
Here's Miles -- here's Miles getting his first hit.
Look at this.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Laughter ]
-He's just walking.
[ Laughter ]
Yes! That's Miles!
That's my dude!
Congratulations!
He was so cool. He's like, "Now what's up?"
-I know, I know.
We are not an athletic bunch, honestly.
But John is so proud. Someone's like, "Drop the bat!"
Like, you have to explain every part.
Like, of course he wouldn't know to drop the bat.
-No, come on. -But it's so sweet.
-That's the best thing. -It's really awesome.
-Having kids is the greatest thing.
-Yeah, it really is so fun. -I heard that you had a recent
incident with Luna and the Tooth Fairy.
-Oh, yeah. Yeah.
-How does the Tooth Fairy -- I know --
-Well, I don't know the rules of anything.
Like, no one -- like, you forget, like, what the lie is.
Like, at Easter, we were like -- like -- she was like, so --
-What's the backstory? -Yeah, did we leave
the eggs out, or did the Easter Bunny bring the eggs?
-Yeah, Easter Bunny. -And I don't know if I'm --
Did I make the basket,
or did the Easter Bunny make the basket?
-Sometimes the bunny brings the basket.
-Right?
-Sometimes you provide the basket.
-So, it doesn't -- yeah, there's no rhyme -- there's no rules.
-No rules. -Ever.
-Tooth Fairy is really out there.
-Tooth Fairy -- -That's a tough one to explain.
-Yeah. So, she loses her first tooth,
and then, I promptly dropped it down the sink,
like, immediately, in my bathroom sink.
And it's kind of an odd sink. So there's this --
there's this, like, kind of long divot that it could fall into.
And so we had to -- it was, like, thousands of dollars.
-Oh, my gosh. -We had to bring someone in
with a camera, like the Roto-Rooter camera thing,
that goes down and spirals in. -What?
-Found the tooth, put it in a Ziploc bag.
I was so happy.
And then I threw the Ziploc bag away, like, immediately.
[ Laughter ]
-You totally forgot what you're doing.
Like, clean it up, throw it out. -Yeah.
That's my thing, too, is, I throw away everything.
I love throwing things away. -Yeah.
-So, yeah, that one's gone. But I do have her other ones.
-Yeah, my -- Franny swallowed her first tooth.
-Oh, really? -Yeah, she was like,
"I lost my first tooth." "Oh, my God! Where is it?"
She's -- "I swallowed it." [ Laughter ]
-Like, the root is so long.
I didn't know teeth roots were that long.
Is it just Luna?
-I don't know if that tooth was ready to be pulled.
[ Laughter ] -Maybe not.
-Really, yeah. No, I don't think I had my --
I did recently, though, my dad was giving me stuff
that he's had forever and didn't want,
and gave me, like, a bag of my own teeth.
-See, that's -- I think that's cool!
[ Laughter ] No?
-No, thanks! No, thanks!
-I have their umbilical cords. -What?!
-I have -- -Yeah, I think
he gave me that, too. It was in --
"Let's just keep it in the shoe box. We're good."
-I have the cords, teeth, everything.
-Surprise me later. -Yeah.
-Yeah, I go, "No, we'll freak out my kids later."
-I don't do the fingernails, though.
-Oh, stop it. No one has fingernails.
-No. I know, right? -No. But I'm just like,
"What am I supposed to do with my --" like, I don't know.
I guess it's kind of interesting. No.
-Your old teeth? -No.
-Yeah, I don't know. My mom keeps all that stuff too.
-It's wild. -Yeah.
-It's wild what parents keep. -I know.
I don't mind it, though, I got to say.
-Yeah, I'm good not having any --
[ Laughter ]
I'm like -- -"I'm fine without it."
-Yeah. You know, I was looking at
this beautiful picture of your family.
Because, you guys --
When normal families go out, they go to whatever.
They go to a restaurant, they go bowling.
When you guys go out, you go to the Grammys.
[ Laughter ] -We go bowling a lot.
-Here's you at the Grammys.
Everyone looking good.
What was that like to bring the kids?
-That was their first time to Las Vegas.
-Oh, is that where it was? -Yeah, it was crazy.
Because, well, John, when he told me we were
gonna go to Grammys, he was like, "Do you want to go?"
And I was like, "Oh, it's like,
we're supposed to be on vacation during this time."
And then he was like, "No."
He's like, "Well, I've been asked to perform," so...
-He was great, by the way.
-Like, "Let's bring the whole family out."
Yeah, it was really wonderful.
But he didn't tell me it was in Las Vegas.
So, like, we had to bring the whole family to Vegas.
-It's usually in L.A. -Yeah.
So they had a good time, though.
They got to see, like, a ton of celebrities, obviously.
-But get dressed up. And they just look like --
Look how cool. -Yeah.
And Miles loves a suit. He's very -- he's like John.
-Yeah, he's like, "Yeah, I just hit a single.
No big deal." [ Laughter ]
"Now I'm off to the Grammys." [ Laughter ]
I want to talk about this docuseries, okay?
-Yeah. -Now it's called "The Way Down."
W-A-Y. -Yes.
-And I say that because
didn't Gwen have a thing called, like, "The Weigh?"
-Yeah, so she had -- she started as this --
she started something called "The Weigh Down Workshop."
And she was just this big diet guru.
She was an author. She sold a lot of books.
And then she re-- You know, "What do these people
love more than money is power."
So, she kind of decided to meld it with this, like,
toxic Christianity and then start this cult-like following
at this church called The Remnant Fellowship.
-Yeah. Started her own church.
-Yes. She preyed on the insecurities
of a lot of the people that followed her.
And she basically had these, you know, fundamentalist values,
but she tied it into, you know, you need to pray instead of --
every time you want to eat, you should just pray.
And it was basically, like, intuitive eating.
But it was just all done so wrong and so toxic.
-And everyone bought this book. And everyone got --
-Everyone bought the book.
Everyone was so down with "The Weigh Down."
-She was on every talk show. And it's a thing.
-Yes. Yeah. -And you're like,
"Wait. What's going on?" -Oh, it was a big thing.
Yeah, so -- And she just took off.
She just got more and more powerful
and had more and more followers.
And everything -- the ego got bigger,
the hair got bigger.
-Her hair, by the way, is unbelievable.
-Her hair, yeah. -You think it's a joke.
It's not a joke. -I know.
You start to -- And then, I was actually like --
when we were talking about this at South by Southwest,
we were trying to figure out why.
-How? -I think it's because she wore
these, like, chunky shoes and had big hair.
And I'm pretty sure it was to make herself
feel smaller, in a way.
Like, if she was surrounded by these big things,
it makes her feel dainty or something.
I don't know. -I've never seen any other
person with that hairdo in my life.
-No, never.
-I don't know what to compare it to.
-Higher the hair, the closer to God, they say.
-Wow -- yeah, there it is. -Maybe that's it.
-She definitely got close.
And the husband and all that stuff --
-Yeah. -And then you go --
-Yeah, the husband was Tarzan.
I mean, it was all such a weird --
-No, her husband actually was -- -He was Tarzan.
-He didn't live in the jungle. -Oh, no, sorry.
He played Tarzan. -Played Tarzan. Yeah, yeah.
-Tarzan's not real? [ Laughter ]
-Hopefully the kids are asleep. They're like,
"Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Tarzan."
[ Laughter ] -I know.
-"What is going on?" Tarzan is real.
-Just doesn't know if he brings his own baskets.
Who knows. -I think Joe was actually
kind of the most fascinating part of the series.
-Me too!
-Because he's, like, so captivating.
And it's so weird. You can totally tell this is
the first time this guy's ever opened the Bible.
He's, like, reading it sideways, and he's like trying to --
-And now he's in charge. -Yeah, and now he's the leader.
-He's a leader, and he's telling these people
about this religion.
Everyone's like, "Who is this guy?"
-And, you know, Natasha, who is featured on it, as well,
was his ex, and the mother of his --
-She was great. -Yeah, she's incredible.
And she just goes, she's like, "He was never religious.
He was never a religious person. He was an out-of-work actor."
And just, like, he didn't really --
This wasn't the person he was.
-But it's also not that long ago, sadly.
-I know. -I mean, like --
You go, like, "Oh, is this from the '60s or something?"
And you go, "This was like 10 years ago."
-That's the weirdest part to me is, these stories exist,
and we don't know about -- that this is happening.
So when it was brought to me, I was like,
"No way this is happening right now as we speak."
-But can we talk about -- as you were finishing up
production on the series, something terrible happened.
-Yeah, oh, my God, it was --
Yeah, we woke up one day, and just scrolling our newsfeeds
and saw that their -- Gwen's -- Gwen and Joe's plane
had crashed into a lake outside of Nashville,
and everyone on the plane died.
So, you know, it was just like --
it was terrifying because we didn't know
who was on the plane exactly.
And Natasha didn't know if her daughter was on the plane.
And it was just so scary and a really weird time.
And, you know, we'd get on the phone with HBO Max,
and we wonder, you know, "Should we continue with this?"
But then, you know, as time passed, we realized that people
were more and more okay with speaking out
now that she was gone.
Like, they were very fearful of her.
-They were afraid to say anything.
-Yeah, they were scared to go against her.
They didn't know if the church
would come and attack their families.
Or, you know, they felt like they were in danger.
So, when she had passed, people --
And that's kind of what part two is,
going into it now, are all these people
that are no longer afraid to speak out.
-Oh, it is fantastic. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's a peek of the new episode of "The Way Down."
Take a look.
-That text wasn't just for the people within Remnant
but from anyone outside of Remnant
that would get ahold of that.
That, I believe, was definitely more of her motive
behind that text than it was being sent
directly to the Remnant congregation.
-A lot of what cults often do with situations like this
is very Orwellian.
It will be almost ignored because it does not
fit their narrative that their leader
was struck down in an accident
that God could have protected her from.
If the righteous are protected by the hand of God,
how could Gwen have died like that?
-Oof. [ Applause ]
-Chrissy Teigen, everybody. The final episodes
of "The Way Down: God, Greed, and The Cult of Gwen Shamblin,"
premiere Thursday on HBO Max.