Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius - Part 1 of 3

0:00 Hi. I'm Rich and I'm Tina. If there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, it's it some. Days you'll feel like killing your husband. And some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill, Hey, Tina, Hey Rich, Happy New Year, Happy new Year. Maybe twenty twenty six, it's going to be a great year. I just have a feeling. We're two days into it. How's it feeling so far? Pretty good? Exercised all year so far excellent. I think I've been eating pretty well. How about you?

0:42 So I just haven't been able to wake up yet in twenty twenty six. I just feel really tired all the time. It was probably that wild New Year's Eve we had. Oh it was out of contr crazy crazy at our couch. I stayed up till twelve oh three. So that was nuts. Yeah, it was so bad. I was in the bathroom when the time changed over, and I'm like, I was trying to I was just washing my face and getting ready for bed, because that's how exciting it was that I just couldn't get to you fast enough. I'm really sorry. It was wild. Lost my retainers again in my pocket. I couldn't find them on New Year's Eve right at midnight, and I was like, well, I can't go to bed with them, my retainers. So yeah, yeah, it was wild over here the Love Mary Kill Studios.

1:25 Yeah, New Year knew us. It was a nice break though, So thanks everyone for being patient with us and letting us have a couple of weeks. Yeah, it was very relaxing. You look very cozy over there. I am freezing. We are freeeding. Our studio is cold, but it's it's just really cold here in Michigan today. What you're wearing. I bought this blanket a while back. It's like a blanket, but it has armholes. It's like a snuggy kind of but it's more just like a blanket and it just really has It does look very cozy. It looks very soft and fuzzy and warm. It is I feel like a little chill. Your nose, honestly, the tip of your nose is red. Well. I was out doing the shoveling the driveway again today, the second time in like three days.

2:10 You didn't really shovel though. Oh well, I use the snow blow. So that's two different things. You're either blowing very cool, you're shoveling. They're very different. I'm just gonna change the terminology to I was out clearing the driveway of snow and it was very cold out there. Well, I'm still like not quite warmed up. We had a green Christmas, but then it's been snowing like an inch here and there. So yeah, it just keeps coming. I like it though. It feels like, you know, a real authentic winter, but it's been too cold to like go sledding or anything fun. Yeah, very true. Are we changing anything in twenty twenty six on the podcast? Well, that is a good question. I haven't even really thought about it. Do you think we should? Well, we had talked about doing some more cases that weren't Love Mary Kill cases, so maybe we'll do someh.

2:53 We change our opening though, or should we? I don't know, Yeah we should. Do you want to change our theme song? No, not change our theme song that has been decided already. But well, me and one of our listeners really wants to change. We could change what we say at the opening though, or at the end. Or I don't know. We don't really have I don't I must know if. You have, if you have ideas because we. Obviously do you want to run our podcast for us? Yeah, that would be great, we'd appreciate it. Well, I am excited to see what you brought. You're going to be disappointed. Bye. So for our case today, we are going to South Africa, yeah again, to talk about Reva Steamcamp and Oscar Pastorias.

3:33 And I wanted to find a an authentic South African snack. And I happen to find out that there is an African market not very far from our house, like fifteen minutes away from our house. So I ran out there today. I was going to get something. It turns out that Africa is a really big continent and South Africa is only one part of it. And the African market they don't sell any South African snacks. Oh well, you could have just bought an African snack because it's still the market. It was a cute little market, but to be honest with you, it was mostly like spices and meats and stuff like that. It wasn't like they didn't have like a lot of snack foods. I had offered to make a snack for you and you said, no, I haven't covered. I am going to make a snack for part two, I do have a South African snack I'm going to make you for part two. But for part one, I bought some pretzels. It's a brand of pretzels I had never heard of before called Stellar Pretzel Braids, simply Stellar Pretzel Braids.

4:28 Have you tried them? I told you. Six with some random pretzels. Well, they look good. I told you you'd be disappointed. But yeah, it's a if. A mom and daughter created this Stellar Snacks in twenty nineteen. And by the way, all these just someone has approached me about doing another podcast and it might be a daughter I know, a. Little concerned potentially moonlighting. Stay tuned. Yes, but how about would you like to try these simply Stellar pretzels? Yes? I would love to. I'm sure they have pretzels in South Africa, right. I'm sure they do.

5:11 What did you think about the simply Stellar pretzels? So it was just a little ironic that today you were going to the store and you said, hey, do we need anything? And I gave you a list of about eight things, and one of them actually was butter made pretzel sticks. I'm sorry, better made pretzels and I far prefer those to these, I feel bad. Saying that I didn't. I did not love those. Yeah, yeah, I would give them like a two out of ten. It feels like they're kind of a Dot's knockoff. But not that's really offensive to that. I mean they're the same sort of shape, the same type of packaging. Almost no flavor. Yeah they have. They had a lot of different flavors, but I got kind of the traditional kind or the original or whatever they're called.

5:52 But yeah, kind of dry and yeah. Not even kind of dry, super dry, almost no salt. So thumbs down on that one. But I will redeem myself tomorrow with a homemade South African stack. We'll see about that. Today we are. Going back to South Africa to cover the case of Riva Steinecamp and Oscar Pistorius. Obviously a very well known case. This was a recommendation from EVE. It's been on our list a long time, so I'm happy to have finally gotten to it. A lot of people have actually recommended this case, probably at least ten people, not surprising. Sorry we don't have all your names listed. In the early morning hours of Valentine's Day twenty thirteen, just after three am, four gunshots shattered the silence inside a gated community called silver Woods in Pretoria, South Africa.

6:35 Within hours, the story exploded across social media and news outlets around the world. This was not just another shooting in a country already grappling with high levels of violent crime. This one was different. The man at the center of it was Oscar Pistorius, a global icon, a Paralympic superstar, and the pride of South Africa. To many, he was the embodiment of perseverance, the blade runner, the fastest man on no legi, a symbol of what was possible in a country still defining itself after apartheid. Some even called him a hero destined to help fill the void left by Nelson Mandela. But by sunrise that image was in ruins. Oscar Pistorius had shot and killed his girlfriend, Reva Steencamp, a model, law school graduate and aspiring reality TV star, inside his own home. Almost overnight, a man once celebrated as a national inspiration came to represent something far darker.

7:31 South Africa's struggle with gun violence, its epidemic of violence against women, and the deep inequalities of its justice system. There's no dispute about the physical facts of what happened that morning, Oscar Pistorius fired four shots through a locked bathroom door. Reva Steencamp was on the other side. What the world and the courts would struggle to understand was why was this an intentional killing, the tragic end of a volatile relationship, or was it, As to say, the story is claimed, a catastrophic mistake driven by fear, paranoia, and a man who believed an intruder was inside his home. This is the story of how a Valentine's Day shooting became one of the most closely watched criminal trials in modern history, and how the line between hero and villain can disappear in an instant. Before we go any further, I want to talk about Reva Steencamp. In cases like this, especially those shaped by fame and spectacle, the victim can too easily fade into the background. Public fascination with Oscar Pistorius has long dominated how this story is told, and inevitably much of what follows will examine his life, his rise, and the contradictions that defined him. That context matters in understanding how this crime occurred. But Riva Steencamp is not a footnote She's not a secondary character in someone else's downfall.

8:53 She is the victim. Those who knew Reva described her as vibrant, motivated, and deeply empathetic, one whose warmth was unmistakable. Friends and family remember her as a person who made others feel seen, someone who had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the room. She was bubbly and affectionate, kind, considerate, and non judgmental, always smiling but never shallow. Riva was also principled and outspoken, particularly when it came to women's rights. She spoke publicly about domestic violence and sexual assault, lending her voice to issues that affected countless women in South Africa and around the world. In a reality TV segment filmed shortly before her death, Reva summed up her personal philosophy in simple terms, maintain integrity, maintain class, and always be true to yourself. Riva Steenkamp was just twenty nine years old when she was killed. And as we now turned to Oscar Pistorius, his upbringing, his success, and the public image that made this case explode globally, it's important to keep one thing in focus. Understand his story is not about explaining away what happened. It's about understanding how Reva.

10:05 Lost her life. Obviously, this is a very well known story. Before we go on, how much do you remember about this story? I mean, I remember the shooting, and I remember the tragic loss of Reva's life. I know that he was convicted and he was released. I don't know the particulars, and I don't know. The thing I'm most looking forward to is hearing about his upbringing. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. Yeah. I have to say I didn't really know a whole lot about this story. Obviously I knew the big picture facts, but it was really interesting to research it, so hopefully it'll be interesting for you as well. Sheila and Henka Pistorius lived a white, upper middle class life in apartheid era South Africa in a large home in a comfortable suburb of Johannesburg. Henka was an africaner, part of the white minority that dominated South Africa's political and business life until the mid nineteen nineties. Sheila stayed home to raise the children while Henka worked as a businessman, but his career was unstable. He was erratic, prone to dramatic swings between success and failure, and the family's financial security often rose and fell with his fortunes. When Oscar was born in November of nineteen eighty six, business was going well.

11:18 Oscar was the second of three children. His older brother Karl was already at home, and a younger sister, Amy, would. Follow a few years later. Oscar was born with a rare congenital condition called fibular hemomelia. The fibula, the thin bone that runs between the knee and the ankle alongside the tibia, was missing in both of his legs. As a result, his legs were unusually short, his ankles were only partially formed, and he had just two toes on each foot. Doctors told Henka and Sheila that their son would never be able to stand or walk on his own. His feet, they said, were too narrow and too twisted to ever support his weight. Just before Oscar's birth, Henka had turned to the obstetrician and said he didn't care whether the baby was a boy or a girl, only that the child be born with ten fingers and ten toes. When he saw his son's deformities, that hope was shattered, But instead of recoiling, Henkah lifted the newborn in both hands and made a declaration, this is my son Oscar, and I declare before God that I shall love him and stand by him for the rest of my days.

12:24 As doctors began evaluating Oscar's condition, it soon became clear that Shila and Henke Pistorius faced an agonizing choice. Attempt corrective surgery or amputate. Corrective surgery would mean eight to ten complex operations spread over the next sixteen to eighteen years. Even then, the outcome would be limited. Oscar might be able to move around the house and manage basic tasks, but he would never walk normally, never run, and never live without significant physical restriction. The alternative was more drastic. Shila and Henke sought a opinions relentlessly, consulting eleven doctors in South Africa and overseas. Some supported the long surgical route, others proposed a compromise, amputating one leg at attempting corrective surgery on the other. Eventually, they were referred to Jerry Versfeld, a white orthopedic surgeon who worked in a hospital in Soweto, where under apartheid, only black patients were treated. After reviewing Oscar's condition, Versfeld delivered a blunt but compassionate assessment, painful as it was the best chance for Oscar to live a full, independent life was to amputate both legs below the knee. It was a heartbreaking recommendation, but it would also change everything. Had Sheila and Henke chosen differently, it's likely the world would never have heard the name Oscar Pistorius.

13:51 Doctor Versfeld performed the surgery when Oscar was just eleven months old and age chosen deliberately. Most babies are beginning to think about standing and takeing their first steps at that stage. If the operation succeeded, Oscar would learn to explore the world on prosthetic legs rather than unformed feet. It's amazing how babies are so adaptable resilience. So I think it's probably the best decision. In my unmedical opinion. It just sounds like the best decision. Yeah, for sure. The surgery lasted four hours and required extraordinary precision. Firstfeld's goal was to preserve Oscar's heel pads and attach them to the bottom of his amputated tibias. Heel pads are natural weight bearers, and by repositioning them firstfelt gave Oscar something rare, the ability to walk short distances directly on his stumps, something that would otherwise have been impossible. Three months later, once the wounds were healed, Shila and Henke took Oscar to a prosthetic specialist to be fitted for his first artificial legs. The fourteen month old watched intently as the wooden prosthesis were strapped on. Then he stood up.

15:01 Almost immediately, Oscar began stumbling around the room, unsteady, determined and curious, just like any other toddler taking their first steps. Sheila and Henka were overwhelmed with relief and joy. Oscar never forgot what doctor Versfeldt had given him. As he grew older, their professional relationship turned into a personal bond. Oscar would later invite versfeld and his wife to dinner, maintaining a friendship rooted in gratitude and in a decision that shaped the rest of his life. Can imagine how overwhelmed his parents must have been when he started walking on these prosthetic legs. I mean, it just must have been a miracle. Such a yeah. From the beginning, Shila and Henk were determined to treat Oscar no differently from any other boy. He ran and played with his older brother Carl. He played soccer, rode mountain bikes, and climb trees. Sometimes that freedom came at a cost. Rough play would leave painful sores on Oscar's stumps, making it difficult impossible for him to walk for days at a time, but Oscar was undeterred. As soon as the pain subsided, he was back outside again, keeping pace with the other boys. Shila also refused to define her son by his disability Academically, She had no intention of sending Oscar to a special school. He attended public school like any other child, expected to compete and cope in the same environment as everyone else. When Oscar was just six years old, his parents' marriage collapsed. Henka left the family and moved roughly seven hundred miles away to Port Elizabeth.

16:35 At first, he made an effort, visiting every few weeks and sending money to support the children, but as his business fortunes declined, so did his involvement. Financial support dwindled, visits became sporadic. Eventually they stopped altogether. So much for Henka's declaration after Oscar was born that he was going to stand by his son for the rest. Of his life. I know he teared up. I was like, that's so sweet, and that's exactly how every parent should react. Oh, that's too bad. Without Hankah's income, Sheila and the children were forced to move into a smaller home in a rougher neighborhood. Sheila found work as a secretary. She could no longer afford private prosthetic care for Oscar, and instead relied on the public hospital system to adjust and refit his artificial legs as he grew the process of getting the new prosthetic limbs and children grow so fast it must be overwhelming and always having to adapt and adjust.

17:29 Yeah, I can imagine it would be very difficult. Life in the new neighborhood was harder and scarier. Sheila lived in constant fear of a break in. If she heard a noise at night, she would leave from bed and call the police. She would wake the children, usher them into her bedroom, lock the door, and wait. Sheila bought a gun and slept with it loaded under her pillow every night. Despite the family's financial struggles, they were helped by Hanka's brother, Arnold Pistorius, a wealthy businessman. Arnold had taken over the Pistoria's family company, Storius and Company, founded by Oscar's grandfather in nineteen forty four and the oldest supplier of agricultural lime in South Africa. Arnold provided financial support when Sheila needed at most, and when Oscar and Carl reached their teens, he paid for them to attend Pretoria Boys High School, an elite public boarding school known for producing high achievers across sports, politics, business, and the law. Through it all, Sheila remained Oscar's anchor. She was his fiercest advocate, instilling in him the belief that he could do anything, that limitations were challenges meant to be confronted, not avoided. But Sheila was struggling too, as a secret alcoholic. Carl, the eldest child, knew when Sheila passed out. He quietly stepped in, covering for her and taking care of his younger siblings. In November of two thousand and one, eight years after divorcing Henka, Shila remarried, this time to an airline pilot, but within a month of the wedding, all seriously ill and was hospitalized. Doctors

19:03 discovered severe liver damage but mistakenly diagnosed her with hepatitis. The medications they prescribed caused a devastating reaction. Sheila's condition rapidly deteriorated. She slipped into a coma and died just forty four years old. Oscar was fifteen. That's devastating because he really needed her. Yeah, it's a really hard time for anyone to lose their mom, but I think for Oscar especially, it was definitely hat a major impact. So by that point he was completely estranged from his father. Shila was gone, he was in many ways alone. Uncle Arnold took in Oscar's younger sister and continued paying for boarding school for Oscar and Carl. Boarding school became Oscar's home.

19:45 Holidays and breaks were spent with his uncle. After Sheila's death, a note was discovered when she had written to Oscar when he was just five months old, meant to be given to him when he became an adult. It read, the real loser is never the person who crosses the finish line last. The real loser is the person who sits on the side, the person who does not even try to compete. Those words would stay with Oscar. They became his credo. Well be back after a break, I think we can all picture Oscar Pistorias in the Olympics and what his legs, the blades that he ran un looked for. Yeah, but I'm wondering at age fifteen what his prosthetics might have looked like.

20:32 Yeah, he would eventually wear the blades only when competing. He would always wear regular prosthetics when he wasn't competing, and when he was young, they were really. Basic, like wooden, bulky okay legs. Yeah, like very old style because his mom couldn't really afford really nice ones at that time in their life, so he had pretty old fashioned prosthetics early on. Oscar's determination was evident almost as soon as he arrived at boarding school. During his first at age fourteen, students were sent on a three day remote excursion that ended with a brutal final challenge, a climb up a steep, rocky hill rising nearly a mile above sea level. It was a grueling hike, even for the most physically able boys.

21:15 As the bulk of the group reached the summit, the expedition leader climbed into a van to collect the remaining stragglers. Oscar was among them. He stood in shorts drenched in sweat. His legs were badly chafed, bleeding where his prosthetics rubbed against his stumps. The expedition leader told Oscar to get into the van, but Oscar refused. The leader insisted again. Oscar said no, he would finish himself, or not at all. Oscar reached the top last, but he reached it. Despite his efforts to fit in and be treated like any other boy, boarding school could be unforgiving. Some of the other students were openly cruel and at times vicious. One night, Oscar was jolted awake by shouting. Boys were telling that there was a fire and that everyone needed to evacuate. Immediately, disoriented and panicked, Oscar reached instinctively for his prosthetic legs, which he always kept at the foot of his bed.

22:11 They were gone. What he didn't yet know was that several boys had hidden his legs as a prank. They had sprayed lighter fluid onto stainless steel cabinets in the dormitory and set them on fire to make the evacuation seem real. In the chaos, Oscar believed he was about to be left behind, trapped and helpless. That's so sad, incredibly cruel. Boys can be so cruel. Years later. Years later, he would write about that moment, quote, I was almost in tears, terrified that I was going to be left to die. Oscar played a variety of sports, but by high school rugby had become his passion. It was a brutal, physical game, and Oscar insisted on playing it like everyone else. Sometimes that meant being tackled so hard his prosthetic legs would go flying. Play would stop briefly while Oscar picked them up, reattached them, and carried on.

23:03 When Oscar was fourteen, he fell while running and one of his prosthetic legs snapped. Panicked, he called his grandmother. This was an emergency. He told her he needed a new set of legs immediately. Oscar's regular prosthetics specialist was about forty five minutes away, so his grandmother arranged for him to see someone closer, Francois Vanderwatt. Vanderwatt immediately saw that the broken prosthetic was beyond repair, but he also noticed something else. Oscar was still using old style wooden prosthetics, the kind commonly prescribed in the nineteen fifties. They were sturdy, but they weren't designed for speed or for a teenager determined to compete. Vanderwat wanted to do more than fix what was broken. He wanted to give Oscar something better.

23:48 Over the next several days, the two met repeatedly to experiment with fit and alignment. As Vanderwat got to know Oscar, he was struck by his intensity, his competitiveness, his refue usual to accept limits. At one point, he showed Oscar a promotional video for the Paralympic Games. Oscar had never heard of them. He was transfixed almost immediately. He decided he wanted to run. But competitive sprinting as a double amputee required a very specific kind of prosthetic carbon fiber blades, often called cheetah blades. They were lightweight, spring loaded, and prohibitively expensive. Unable to afford them, Vanderwat decided to try something unconventional. He contacted a man who worked with carbon fiber in aircraft manufacturing, and together they attempted to build a pair from scratch. They took the finished blades to the track and Oscar broke them in about five minutes.

24:45 Vanderwat wasn't discouraged. He built another pair, then another, and another, each time refining the design, learning from the failures. By the sixth iteration, they finally had something that worked, a pair of blades that didn't break, fit comfortably and could withstand Oscar's power. It was the beginning of something far bigger than either of them realized. That's amazing, Yeah, it really is. So early on, Oscar had this raw athletic ability, and that's what everyone was recognizing in him. Well, wasn't just his athletic ability, it was his determination. Yeah, he was just so determined to be like every other kid, and you know, very competitive, but also raw athletic ability.

25:29 Even after taking up running, Rugby remained Oscar's first love, but that changed shortly after he turned sixteen. During a match, Oscar was tackled hard and suffered a serious knee injury. His doctor prescribed a three month rehabilitation program, one that relied heavily unsprinting. Once he was ready to rebuild strength and stability. It was during that rehab that something unexpected happened. Oscar began racing seriously. Before long, he was representing Pretoria Boys High schoo at track and field meets. At his first competition, boys from rival schools openly mocked him. They assumed he had been chosen out of sympathy, a token inclusion meant to inspire rather than compete. That assumption didn't last long. Oscar won one hundred meter dash, then he anchored the four by one hundred relay, leading his school to victory. His time in the hundred meters that day was eleven point seventy two seconds, nearly half a second faster than the existing Paralympic record for double amputees. It's crazy, his first track event in high school and he broke the Paralympic record. From that moment on the path became clear, Oscar gave up rugby and committed himself fully to running.

26:44 At seventeen, he competed in the South Africa Disabled Games, where he posted qualifying times good enough to represent South Africa at the two thousand and four Paralympic Games. Just three months before the Games, Oscar received his first official pair of Chief brand carbon fiber blades. They took him to another level, and they marked the beginning of his transformation from a gifted teenager with potential into an athlete the world was about to notice. So the para Olympic Games are there age restrictions, like you have to be eighteen and over or you can be any age. I don't believe there are age restrictions now. In two thousand and four, Paralympic Games and Athens marked Oscar's first appearance on a truly global stage. The crowds were enormous, the pressure in tense. He was just seventeen years old and had been running competitively for barely eight months, facing seasoned athletes with years, sometimes decades, of experience. To understand the significance of that moment, it helps to understand what the Paralympic Games represent. The Paralympics were founded by Ludwig Gutmann, a German Jewish neurosurgeon who fled to England in nineteen thirty nine to escape Nazi persecution. After World War Two. Gutmann treated soldiers with spinal cord injuries and noticed how deeply the isolation and despair affected their recovery.

28:07 He came to believe that organized sport could restore dignity, purpose, and morale. In nineteen forty eight, on the very same day the London Summer Olympics opened, Gudmann launched a small competition known as the Stoke Mandeville Games twelve years later. The idea evolved into the first Paralympic Games, held in Rome in nineteen sixty. Since then, the Paralympics have grown into one of the world's largest sporting events. The twenty twenty four Paralympic Games featured more than four thousand, four hundred athletes from one hundred seventy countries competing across five hundred forty nine metal events. Billions of viewers around the globe now watched the Games, placing them alongside the Olympics as a major international spectacle. Because Paralympic athletes have a wide range of disabilities, competition is carefully class There are ten eligible impairment types, including impaired muscle power, limb efficiency, and leg length difference. These are further subdivided to create as level a playing field as possible. Oscar was classified as T forty three, a double below knee amputee, but he competed in T forty four events, which were technically reserved for single below knee amputees. When the Games began in Athens, Oscar was visibly nervous as he stepped onto the track for the first race. The two hundred meter qualifying heat. When the starting gun fired, he hesitated for

29:38 a split second. All the other runners exploded out of the blocks, while Oscar seemed frozen, only realizing a moment too late that the race had begun. But it didn't matter. He surged forward, caught the field, finished first, and broke the world record. I've seen the video of this race, and it's really interesting that at the start, he honestly just it was like he didn't hear the gun, like he was so nervous. He was just in in his own head, and all of a sudden he looks up and it's like, oh, everyone's gone already. Yeah, but the. Velocity with which he came back was just amazing. That's amazing. Oscar advanced to the final, where he did it again, another world record and a gold medal. He also won bronze and the one hundred meters, an event that never quite suited him due to his notoriously slow starts.

30:26 When he returned home to South Africa, Oscar was suddenly everywhere media appearances, television commercials, sponsorship deals, even a car. So he's only seventeen and he has this fame and yeah, yeah, that's not going to go well. Oscar's sudden fame created tension at school. While the headmaster at Pretoria Boys' High School was proud of Oscar's achievements, he was firm in his belief that no students should receive special treatment. Oscar was not allowed to keep the sponsored car. Oscar was furious, but he complied it was an early lesson and how quickly admiration can collide with authority, and how success would often come with rules. Oscar didn't want to follow a sir.

31:09 The company that manufactures the carbon fiber Cheetah blades used by most elite Paralympic runners is based in Iceland. After Oscar's breakout performance at the two thousand and four Paralympic Games, Ohser signed him as a sponsored athlete. I have a question for you. How expensive are these Cheetah blades. They are quite expensive today. They're fifteen to twenty thousand dollars for like a good, high end performing model. I'm sure they have cheaper versions as well, but if you're an elite athlete using these, you're going to spend a lot of money. In earlier you said that those blades are only used for racing. You would need a different prosthetic for everyday life.

31:49 Yeah. Oscar soon began traveling regularly to Iceland, immersing himself in every technical detail of the blades built specifically for him. One oh Sir engineer who worked closely with Oscar leaders, said he had a huge hunger, more than any other athlete we've ever worked with. He was so focused absolute tunnel vision. You could see this was just everything to him. Over time, Oscar's body presented a growing challenge. The heel pad on his left stump had gradually migrated upward, eventually sitting almost vertically. It no longer protected the bone at the end of the stump, leaving it exposed to repeated impact. Solving that problem, finding a way to absorb force while minimizing pressure became the ocer's team's greatest technical hurdle. Oscar ran relentlessly. By the end of long training days, his stumps were often swollen, raw and bleeding, and yet the next morning he would return to the track with the same intensity, pushing just as hard. Oscar often repeated a favorite line, you are not disabled by the disabilities you have.

32:54 You are able by the abilities you have. He rejected the term disabled preferring differently abled. After Athens, he quickly became well known within the para athlete community, especially among younger athletes just beginning their journeys. He went out of his way to offer encouragement, advice, and reassurance. One family in Iceland in particular, became especially close to him. While looking ahead in the paragraph I'm about to read, you as usual have left me with some really. So it was not intentional, I promise, Oh. It always isn't. In two thousand and five, Eva good Munn's daughter and her husband half their Halfland Jason, were expecting a baby boy that was perfect.

33:41 He nailed it and I'm. So sorry to these lovely these people I'm sure are lovely And a twenty week scan, doctors discovered a severe abnormality. Parts of the baby's leg appeared to be missing. The diagnosis was fibular homomilia, the same rare condition Oscar had been born with. It had never before been seen in Iceland. For for information, half Thor searched online. The first image that appeared was Oscar Pistorius. Seeing that image changed everything for the first time. The couple felt hope. Eba and half Thor ultimately chose the same path that Sheila Pistorius had years earlier, amputating both their son's legs At eleven months old. Weeks before the surgery, Eba learned that Oscar would be visiting Iceland. She sent him an email and he replied.

34:28 She invited him to dinner, and Oscar came. Only nineteen at the time. He immediately bonded with a couple and their young son. As Oscar spoke about his mother, Sheila Pistorius, whom he described as his guiding light, Ebba found her own model from motherhood. She resolved to raise her son the same way, never with pity, never with lowered expectations, and never with the belief that he was incapable of anything. Oscar and the family remained close for the next eight years. At one point, Ebba and half thor even moved their family to South Africa for six months, immersing themselves fully in Oscar's world. For them and for many others, Oscar was more than an athlete. He was proof of what was possible.

35:12 I included that story there because I think it just shows that at this time in his life Oscar was really was really nice to people, like people, especially other Paralympic athletes or other people with similar type of disabilities. He just really cared and he did every He went out of his way to be kind to people and to really help them on their own journey. That's a lot of pressure to put on a nineteen year old boy, though it is. Over the next several years, as Oscar continued to race and shatter records, his public image solidified. He was widely seen as the Golden Boy, polite, gracious with his time, and careful in his words in interviews. He was respectful and composed. On the track, he was dominant.

35:54 Barely three years into his running career, Oscar Pistorius had already broken the world records for double amputees in the one hundred, two hundred and four hundred meters. But behind the scenes, there were early signs that something darker existed beneath the carefully managed image. In two thousand and nine, a woman named Cassidy Taylor Memory accused Pistorius of assault. The incident followed a party at Oscar's home. Taylor Memory alleged that during an argument, Oscar punched a door, which slammed into her leg and injured it. Oscar was arrested and held overnight on an assault charge. He denied intentionally hurting her, claiming the injury was accidental and that Taylor Memory had been drunk and aggressive at the party. After an investigation, prosecutors declined to pursue charges. Oscar's legal team succeeded in keeping the incident largely out of the media.

36:49 Taylor Memory later filed a civil suit, which was eventually settled out of court. Oscar agreed to pay her legal costs, but issued no apology. When the settlement became public, Tailor Memory spoke about the toll the ordeal had taken on her. I agreed to it because I was so tired about weighing me down. I received hate mail on a daily basis. It became so difficult at one stage that I needed a bodyguard when I went out in public due to all the hate rants. To most of the world, Oscar Pastorius remained a hero, but for those who looked closely, cracks were beginning to show. We'll be back after a break.

37:35 Around the same time as this alleged assault incident, Oscar was piloting a speedboat on the Vaal River when he slammed into a pier. The impact was sudden and violent. His face smashed into the steering wheel of the boat. The friend, who had been riding with him was somehow unhurt. He turned to. Look at Oscar and was horrified. Blood was pouring from one of Oscar's eyes and a flap of skin had peeled away across his nose. As the boat began to sink, Oscar somehow managed to make it to shore. He was airlifted to a hospital in Johannesburg barely conscious. Doctors discovered he had several broken ribs, lost nearly three liters of blood, and shattered the bones around one eye socket. That sounds rough does to stabilize him, they sedated Oscar into a coma and performed reconstructive surgery on his face.

38:24 Three days later, he woke up. With one hundred and eighty stitches and his jaw wired shut. It was a minor miracle that he survived, especially without any permanent brain damage or lasting neurological injury. After two months of intensive physical therapy, Oscar slowly returned to training, but the accident marked a turning point. Before the crash, his diet and lifestyle had been relatively unremarkable. Afterward, his discipline intensified. He cut out milk and red meat. His meals became tightly controlled, mostly fish, chicken, and vegetables. His body he grew leaner, more sculpted. Everything about his approach sharpened, and his ambition.

39:06 Grew with it. Oscar still loved. The Paralympic Games, but now he set his sights on something unprecedented, qualifying for the Olympic Games, the ultimate stage, the one that no amputee had ever reached. If he could make it there, he wouldn't just be the best in his category, he would change the category itself. I was curious about that. How his times compared to the top times of Olympic athletes. Well, we're going to talk about that, but they weren't. His times were pretty good, I mean, not at the top level of those Olympic athletes, but good enough to qualify. In fact, Oscar had already tried once before to qualify for the Olympic Games. That earlier attempt, aimed at the two thousand and eight Games in Beijing, ignited a bitter and highly public feud between the Paralympic community and the sport's global governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federation, better known as the IAAF. In August two thousand seven, Oscar lined up for a four hundred meter IAAF sanctioned race at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, competing for the first time against elite able bodied athletes. Going into the first seventy meters, he was in last place.

40:19 Then he surged. Oscar powered pass runner after runner and crossed the line in second place. It was a remarkable performance, but instead of celebration, it set off alarm bells inside the IAAF. Officials began to question whether Oscar's carbon fiber prosthetics gave him an unfair mechanical advantage. In November two thousand seven, the IAAF requested that Oscar undergo scientific testing at the German Sport University in Cologne. Oscar agreed. The testing involved sophisticated equipment designed to measure everything from oxygen consumption and energy efficiency to the mechanical behavior of his blaze compared to biological legs. When the results came back, the IAAF's scientific advisors concluded that Oscar used roughly twenty five percent less energy and burned fewer calories than able bodied runners. Moving at the same speed over the same distance.

41:16 Their conclusion was blunt. The Cheetah blades gave Oscar an unfair advantage under the rules that meant he was banned from competing in able bodied events. Oscar and his team strongly disputed the findings. They argued that the conclusions were fundamentally flawed. Sprinting success, they said, was about force and acceleration, not just energy efficiency. Oscar actually struck the ground with less force than runners with biological legs. His speed, they argued, came from the same source as any elite sprinters, an extraordinary stride frequency and relentless training. Oscar refused to back down. He assembled a legal team from the United States and appealed the decision, commissioning independent experts to challenge the IAAF's science.

42:04 The case was heard in May two thousand and eight at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. After two days of testimony, the court ruled unanimously in Oscar's favor. The judges concluded that the IAAF's testing had been incomplete. It examined Oscar only while he was running at top speed in a straight line, and failed to account for his clear disadvantages. At the start and acceleration phases of a race. Taken as a whole, the court found no evidence that Oscar had any net competitive advantage over non disabled athletes. With that barrier removed, Oscar made a last minute push to qualify for the two thousand and eight Beijing Games. South African selectors delayed naming the Olympic team to give him a chance. Then the IAAF intervened again. Despite losing the case, the IAAF's general secretary publicly stated that the organization would prefer that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for the four by four hundred relay team, citing reasons of safety. He warned that Oscar could cause serious damage and potentially endanger himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack. Oscar fired back, calling the statement a last ditch attempt to keep him out of the Olympics. He threatened legal action unless the IAAF formally acknowledged that it had no objections to his participation.

43:27 Under pressure, the IAAF clarified its position, stating that it fully respected the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling and had no intention of influencing team selection. In the end, none of it mattered. Oscar narrowly failed to qualify for the two thousand and eight Olympic team. After recovering from his voting accident, the following year, he became even more determined, though with Beijing behind him, Oscar turned his full attention to one goal the twenty twelve Summer Olympics in London, and this time he intended to make it Impopps to ignore him. I think this topic of whether these artificial legs, these blades give someone an unfair advantage is a really interesting one because.

44:09 I have always wondered this myself. Yeah, I mean, it does make you wonder. But at the same time, these athletes who are double amputees, you have to believe that they're at a severe disadvantage against most people. But there are certain things like the springiness of the legs that are probably a little better than a human leg in some respects. So the other Paralympic athletes did they use these same cheetah blades. Almost every Paralympic athlete that was a runner or sprinter would use those same blades. Yeah, but Oscar always won his races at a pretty big margin to his next competitor. Not always. He was definitely the dominant competitor in the events that he ran in, but it wasn't like he was miles in front or way in front.

44:52 Of the other athletes. While Oscar Pistorius was celebrated by many as a superhero for what he accomplished on the track, his personal life, particularly his relationships with women, was marked by deep insecurity. Despite being named one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive, Oscar was plagued by anxiety when it came to romance. The fear of rejection, of being hurt, ridiculed, or abandoned loomed over him. Dating was never casual for Oscar, It was fraught. A pattern emerged. He would begin relationships with beautiful women almost exclusively so and early on his anxiety would spike around the moment of physical intimacy. Revealing his stumps for the first time filled him with dread. Once he moved past that barrier, he tended to fall hard and fast. Love quickly became dependency. Oscar would grow intensely attached to his partner, then increasingly fearful of losing her.

45:51 That fear often turned into possessiveness. He saw rivals everywhere, Jealousy consumed him, doubts crept in constantly, leus she with him because of who he was, or because of his fame, his money, his status. From the outside, some might speculate that Oscar was searching for a substitute for the one woman he had lost too early, his mother, But no partner could ever live up to that ideal, and as soon as he sensed distance or independence, panic would set in, the familiar terror of abandonment resurfacing. Eventually the relationships would collapse. Each breakup forced Oscar to relive the original grief he had never fully processed losing his mother at fifteen, and rather than sit with that pain, he moved on quickly.

46:38 Soon after one relationship ended, another would begin. It was a cycle, one that repeated again and again throughout his twenties. I am by no means. A psychiatrist or a psychologist, so I apologize for my amateur analysis there, But I do think there is something there with losing his mom at that early age, that he just had this fear of abandonment, and whenever he was with a woman, it probably would cause him a lot of anxiety. That coupled with his physical deformity probably made it very difficult for him to sustain a relationship. I think it was definitely a combination of those things. Oscar's last serious relationship before meeting Reva Steinecamp was with a young woman named Samantha Taylor. They met through Facebook when Oscar was twenty five and Samantha was just seventeen.

47:27 The relationship was. Volatile and on again, off again, but in total it lasted about eighteen months. Years later, Samantha would describe Oscar in starkly contrasting terms. When he was good, she said, he was very good, kind, gentle, and courteous. But when he was bad, he was absolutely horrid. She said his moods could shift without warning. One moment, he would be affectionate, the next enraged at her or at the people around her. Minor things could set him off, forgetting to make him a cup of coffee, wearing clothes that he felt were too revealing. When they were apart, Oscar demanded constant updates. He wanted to know where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing. He often asked for proof, requesting photos to confirm that she was telling the truth.

48:15 Samantha also said that when Oscar wasn't training, he drank heavily. At times, she claimed he would handle his firearms carelessly, waving a gun round without regard for safety. Looking back, Samantha says she came to see the relationship for what it was. She felt emotionally abused. This was the final relationship that Oscar Pastorius would have before meeting Reva Steinecamp, and it offered one of the clearest windows into the patterns that followed him into his next relationship. So it sounds like Oscar dated a lot of women. Do you know what his longest relationship was. Was it with any of these women for more than a year. He was with Samantha for eighteen months, so a year and a half, But it was kind of an on again, off again thing. I think he may have been with another woman or two for like a year to two year time period. It seems like that was sort of the max.

49:08 As the twenty twelve Summer Olympics approached, Oscar was still in an on again, off again relationship with Samantha Taylor on the track, though everything finally came together this time Oscar qualified. Oscar Pistorius made history as the first amputee runner ever to compete in the Olympic Games. When he arrived in London, the scale of it was all overwhelming. Everywhere he went he saw his own face staring back at him from posters and billboards. He wasn't just a competitor, he was one of the faces of the Games. But beneath the celebration, Oscar was unraveling. As his first Olympic debut drew closer, anxiety consumed him. What if he embarrassed himself.

49:52 What if he finished dead last? What if he was disqualified for stepping out of his lane. The pressure felt unbearable. Oscar knew the reality winning a medal was almost certainly out of reach. His goal was modest, at least on paper. Run well in the preliminary heats of the four hundred meters. If everything went perfectly, maybe, just maybe, he could make the semi finals. On the day of the heats, the stadium was firmly behind him. When Oscar was introduced, the crowd erupted. The moment carried all the weight of history. When the gun fired, Oscar did what he did so often. He started slowly. Over the first one hundred meters. He fell behind losing ground to the field, but then he settled into his rhythm. By the halfway mark, he began passing runners one by one, surging down the track. He didn't win the race, but he finished second. It was enough.

50:47 Oscar Pastorius had qualified for the Olympic semi finals. He didn't advance to the finals, though, but it didn't matter. He was ecstatic. He had done exactly what he came to do. He proven to himself and of the world that he belonged on the biggest stage in sport. Once again, Oscar showed that in his mind the words I can't simply did not exist, and for a brief moment, standing there in London, but felt like the story had reached its perfect ending. But it hadn't. In September twenty twelve, just a couple of months after the Olympic Games, Oscar returned to the track for the twenty twelve Paralympic Games, his third appearance at the Paralympics. Publicly, he was still seen as the Golden Boy, but those closest to him noticed a change. Oscar seemed withdrawn heavier somehow, as if a shadow had settled over his life. Part of that weight came from his relationship with Samantha Taylor, which was unraveling.

51:49 She chose not to travel to London to be with him during the Paralympic Games. Exhausted by the volatility of the relationship, she needed distance. Oscar took it hard on the track, cracks began to show as well. In the two hundred meter final, Oscar finished second behind Alan Olivera, a double amputee sprinter from Brazil. It was a stunning upset, and in the moments that followed the public saw side of Oscar Pistorius they weren't used to seeing. During his post race interview, Oscar didn't sound gracious. He sounded angry. He complained that Olivera's carbon blades were too long, suggesting that gave him an unfair advantage. We're not running a fair race here, Oscar said. The guy's legs are unbelievably long, absolutely ridiculous. Then he stormed off, leaving the television panels stunned and unsure how to respond. The next day, a newspaper headline captured the shift in perception. Oscar is not such a saint. In reality. Olavera's blades were along, but they were within regulation. The International Paralympic Committee confirmed that the length was proportional to Oliver's body and fully compliant with Paralympic rules. Oscar issued an apology the next day, but he did not withdraw his complaint. For the first time on a global stage, the image of Oscar Pistorius, the humble, gracious hero, had visibly fractured, and it left many wondering whether the pressure that drove him to greatness

53:20 was beginning to turn inward. It was kind of ironic, after all his battles with the Olympic Committee, with the IAAF where they said his prosthetics weren't fair, that he was now accusing another player who was perfectly within the rules because the blades they have to be proportional to your body, and this guy was just a taller guy, so his blades were longer. But it really was not a good look for Oscar. After the Paralympic Games ended, Oscar returned to South Africa and reconnected with Samantha Taylor. They'd decided to try once again to make their relationship work, but the reunion was rocky from the start. Oscar soon learned that while he had been in London for the games, Samantha had traveled to Dubai with another man. His name was Quentin Vanderbergh, a wealthy South African entrepreneur. Samantha knew Vanderberg socially and had leaned on him during what she described as a dark and confusing period. In her mind, the relationship with Oscar had effectively ended when she told him that she would not be traveling to London for the Paralympics. To her, the break was real. Oscar saw it differently. In his mind, Samantha had cheated on him. That difference in perception proved impossible to bridge. Their relationship finally collapsed for good on November fourth, twenty twelve. Samantha had been expected to attend the South African Sports Awards with Oscar walking the red carpet as his date, but at the last minute she decided she couldn't do it. Something fundamentally had changed. Oscar's

54:51 success and global fame had transformed his priorities. He was increasingly drawn to material things, vast cars, luxury, travels, status, his social circles shifted to Samantha felt that he now evaluated people based on what they could offer him or how they could help elevate his life. She told him she couldn't do it anymore, but Oscar wouldn't be single for long. Fact, as we will pick up at the beginning of part two, he met Reeve a scene camp that exact same day. We talked already a little bit about Oscar's psychology. How do you think his You know, he had this lifelong effort where he didn't want to be seen as different from other people, right, and his mom instilled that in him, like you're no different than any other boy.

55:36 But now he wants to be seen as different. Yeah right, Yeah, because he sees himself as, you know, someone who has status, right, a celebrity and a world class athlete. Yeah. Just wondering like how that pressure to be like a normal boy must have affected him in his life. You make me feel like I'm being quizzed all the time, like there's a right answer and I need to get it. You're the psychiatry major here in our relationships. So I feel psychology psychology major, I get them mixed up. Still that I don't think that undergrad psychology degree. Does qualify you to psychoanalyze prospect historians. But being married to you for a long time and being the mother of two people. I think that gives me a little.

56:19 Bit that's good life experience. I would say, I think his talent affected him more and made him a little more ecocentric. Yeah, so that started to make him believe he was like better than other people in some ways. Maybe he did overcome some pretty hard things, right, absolutely, and he worked super hard that you can't take that away from him. No, he definitely can't. But he also kind of had this deep seated fear of being pitied or made fun of, which is totally understandable for someone in that position. But again, I think he just had all these you know, different aspects of his personality right where he was very driven. He overcame a lot of things, but at the same time, he had really deep insecurities. Then he became wildly successful, so that may have changed him. So I just think he had a very complex set of circumstances that shaped him.

57:07 Success can be very confusing because you're it doesn't take away your insecurities, and I think that's that's what happens is If anything, I think the success enhances your insecurity. Well, like imposter syndrome. I feel like I have a horrible case of imposter syndrome because we've had a nice amount of success from our podcast. We're still a small podcast, but we're doing really well, and a lot of times I feel really insecure, like why am I telling these stories? I'm not an expert, I don't have all the answers. True, And I think a lot of you, a lot of celebrities that really have a hard time dealing with fame and celebrity, you know, I think of like rock stars that just couldn't handle kind of the fame. I think.

57:47 I think it's true that does you know, success in some ways can magnify your insecurities, because all of a sudden you're on a world stage in front of everybody, and it just exacerbates the pressure on you. I would think, well, like you the other day we were at Costco and you felt like you could go ahead people in line. You were like, I am the host of a modestly successful podcast. Have you ever heard of Love Mary Kill? You do that all the time. I do not remember this so embarrassing. Like we'll go to you know, the restaurant, and you'll be like, I am the host of Love Mary Kill. I demanded a table. You're making all of this up. I just want that to be insensitive. Rich I don't know, because you lie.

58:28 We talked about Oscar's patterns with women, like he would he would fall in love really fast, like he would meet someone and be like the next day like, yeah, I'm going to marry this person, and then he would become like possessive, controlling. And I think we've seen this type of pattern before. But what do you think that says about Oscar? Well, his father wasn't in his life, right, his mother passed away. I think he was just looking for love. He wanted someone to care for him and just support him and nurture him. I think we all need that, and you know he might have with his disability, he might have needed that even more because he was so busy telling everyone his whole life, I'm good, I'm strong, I can do anything I want to, right, But at the end of the day, he was still a vulnerable human being with emotions, and you know, he needed nurturing too.

59:14 And I think in some ways his emotional maturity may have been stunted a little bit by the loss of his mother and just everything that he had been through. So he made it. That's a very salient point. Yeah, I think it's really fascinating. We talked about this a little bit, but how you become a normal person though Oscar was never really a normal person because of his being a double amputee. But when you have this level of fame and all of a sudden you can have whatever you want, you know, and you get this special treatment, it really must mess with your brain. Yeah, for sure. Like we talked about, I think that's true for anybody who becomes wildly famous, but I think especially in his case, it must have been really hard to handle that.

59:55 Another thing I'm curious about is when the Paralympics are. Are they every four years? Yeah, coincide with the Olympic Games. I think there shortly after the Olympics in the same city. Are there races between the Paralympics. For Paralympic runners? Yeah, I think there are a number of different events. It's just the Paralympic Games are the big ones. But yeah, there are other events that he would train for and compete in. Samantha had alluded to him having an alcohol and maybe drug problem or am I. Just alcohol is what She mentioned that he drank a lot when he wasn't. Training, So I'm curious when he wasn't training. Was it just here and there or once at a time or years at a time. I am not sure exactly, but what I would guess is that, you know, he had significant events obviously every four years, but then maybe a couple others in between there that he would train really hard for, and then maybe he would take a few months off and yeah, not train and just relax.

1:00:48 Yeah. Well, I like to keep on top of the Peloton leader board, so yes, I minimize my alcohol. Very smart. Please be sure to come back and join us for part two. As we talk about Oscar. And Riva's relationship. Our little friend Cosmo is being quite the noisy cat, so I apologize if people heard him. I think people love to hear him. He was very. Especially vocal today. I think he's upset because the Christmas decorations are no longer here. Yeah, we took them down. I'm curious how long everyone leaves their Christmas stuff up, but I think I started taking it down on the thirtieth because it's been curely. Yeah, so it was up for like six weeks, and once you have to start having to dust your Christmas decoration, that might be time to take him down. Or it was for us anyways, but yeah, it was like, God, our house is so dark and so ugly.

1:01:46 Now our Christmas. Tree is still up, but I think tomorrow I'm going to take it to the sad place where old Christmas trees go. Well, no, they are recycled. They are recycled, but it's kind of sad because you show up. They have like designated places in an arbor where you can take your Christmas tree. And every year I take our Christmas tree there and it's just like this giant pile of you know, Christmas trees that are no longer needed. So it's a lot. Well, but they get chipped and then they get to be, you know, part of nature again. So it's a good thing. But it is funny because we have we put a lot of like lighted, like swaggy garland things up and throughout the Okay, mostly me and our house is really bright and pretty, and now it's like pretty dark dungeon. Yeah, it's a dark, undecorated dungeon. I know everyone feels that way, but I'm like, okay, we need more pictures on the walls.

1:02:35 We need something here. Because it does feel weird when it comes down, like you don't notice it all year long, but then when all the decorations come down, it actually feels like like you can hear sound echo off the walls. More like it doesn't get absorbed because you got these things up, there's less light. It does. It's a weird feeling. Yeah, I don't. I don't love it, but I mean it does like cleaner and you know we're put together. True. Yeah, but I am probably going to buy a couple of new pictures because. We've got some that we still need to put up. I think we bought at an art museum in Chicago. We put those up. We did. Yeah, I got you. I do one for Christmas? Though, tell everyone what I got you for Christmas. It was kind of it's true crime related.

1:03:19 It is. It is a true black Cat poster. I guess I'm not sure who the artist is. It is an actual work of art. It was like a friend. Yeah, you've probably seen it before, but I got it because it was from the staircase. It was at the bottom of the Peterson But I can't Kathleen and Michael Peterson's house. Yeah, I just thought it was funny to put that at the bottom of our staircase. And there's a black cat on it. So yeah. It was also at the bottom of the staircase where his first wife also died after falling down stairs as well. I don't think I remembered that, so it was at the bottom of it. Oh, I know, it's kind of creepy. It is a cool poster though, it's cool art, and because we do have black cats, it's kind of appropriate as well.

1:04:01 But we didn't put it at the bottom of our staircase. No, it is. I mean that's my intention, but we don't have a but it's right next to I guess. It's close to the bottom, not quite. Yeah, we composed a picture of it. Yes, we should do that. I want to talk about one other Christmas present that we've been getting a lot of use out of the last few days. Oh, before you say that, just let me say thank you to the listeners that sent Christmas cards. That was very sweet and generous of you. And it's always so it is our verbal thank you because you're probably not going to get anything in the mail. Yeah. Last year we were a little more ambitious and we got some cards in the mail. This year. You did that. I did not. Yeah, that was so nice. But it was so nice of you guys, and we love you and we appreciate it. Yeah, I'm sorry I interrupted you.

1:04:41 Well, I just wanted to talk about the other present that we got that we've been using quite a bit, and that is the. Basketball Papa Shot. Oh yeah game. So you you bought one of these games that you find them in like arcades and bars where you, you know, shoot as many baskets as you can. And airbnbs that have had them, and we always have a fun time with them. Yes, it's really fun that our son and I finally got around putting it together. It was a little bit of a project to put it together. But now that it's together. It's a lot of fun. Well, it's fun for you, let's just put it that way. Someone might be a little too competitive, just like Oscar. Not that competitive. Oh my god, you are so don't even lie, you're so competitive. Get a little competitive. But it's it's a fun game. But I feel a little dumb because you should always measure before you buy a large thing. Because we were thinking about getting a sauna and it literally is in the place where we were going to put the sauna.

1:05:35 Yeah, really, no other place for it, no other No, it's not true. I will say that our sun beats me regularly at it, so even though I am competitive, I am not really at the top of the family basketball rankings. Okay, well, thank you all so much for listening. We hope you all enjoyed your holidays. Please rate, review, follow, and subscribe. Find us on social media and YouTube, or send us an email at Lovemarykill at gmail dot com. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Go to patreon dot com slash Lovemrykill. We have one tier for five dollars a month for early ad free episodes and. A help me out here a monthly bonus episode.

1:06:16 There, there you go. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill your husband.