Olivia Wilde's mother Leslie Cockburn was the first Western journalist to interview Saddam Hussein's sons, gaining access by going to places other journalists wouldn't and once smuggling a camera under a burqa.
Where this was said
At 19:28 · chapter starts 18:00
This chapter is the biographical heart of the episode. Olivia describes her parents as war correspondents who would take separate planes to Baghdad and stay in different hotels, meeting in secret in the middle of the night before going out to work in bulletproof vests — a life she describes as 'sexy' and 'role-playing.' Her mother Leslie, she reveals, was the first Western journalist to interview Saddam Hussein's sons, gaining access partly because subjects underestimated a woman. Leslie also smuggled a hidden camera under a burqa into Taliban-controlled territory. Despite these consuming careers, Olivia says her parents bridged the gap by treating the home as a salon, inviting interesting people over and including the children in adult conversations — a practice Olivia actively tries to replicate with her own kids.
Olivia Wilde's mother Leslie Cockburn strapped contraband video cassettes under traditional Afghan robes to smuggle out forbidden footage of the Taliban regime. Her secret weapon: being a woman in rooms where men assumed she was no threat.
Leslie Cockburn was among the second class of women ever admitted to Yale University, studied anthropology, graduated early, and then lived in Kenya for a year before graduate school in London.
Olivia Wilde holds triple citizenship — British, Irish, and American — having grown up spending every school holiday in Ireland and feeling equally Irish and American as a child.
Kalanick estimates that a decade ago, 90% of media coverage of tech business was negative, treating companies like political targets.
2024–2025 marked the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder in the US since 1937.
From 2024 to 2025, violent crime decreased 9%, property crime decreased 12.4%, and motor vehicle theft decreased 23%.
California's Ebony Alert Program, designed for the swift recovery of missing Black youth and women, officially went into effect on January 1, 2024.
Andrew Santino discovered that American tourists now need to pay $20 to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to visit the UK, starting January 2025.
Kay Classman, a 28-year-old woman, was arrested for repeatedly enrolling in a Bronx high school posing as a 16-year-old student across multiple school districts.
A poll around 2011 found that 16% of Americans believed 9/11 was an inside job, illustrating how viral misinformation had already embedded itself in public opinion before social media peaked.
Andrew Wilson offered Candace Owens $300,000 to debate her Charlie Kirk conspiracy theory, but she refused.
According to the podcast, only 11 people were killed by the coordinated Israeli pager attack on Hezbollah operatives, despite widespread detonations.
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