New Collagen Study, Ninja CREAMi Horror, My Miami Lawsuit & Wedding Dress Wars

[00:00:00] Chalene Johnson: Oh, this is gonna be a fun one. Wait till we get to some of the drama. But before we get to the drama, let’s talk about skin, hair, nails, connective tissues. Let’s talk about collagen, ’cause I know most of us take it. I certainly do every single day. And they have just released one of the biggest collagen studies that has ever been done.

[00:00:22] Chalene Johnson: Researchers looked at 113 different clinical trials, almost 8,000 people, and they pulled it all together into one massive review, okay? And the verdict, it’s not a total yes and it’s not a total no, surprise, surprise. It’s actually kind of nuanced, and that’s what I appreciate and that’s what I wanna break down.

[00:00:43] Chalene Johnson: Okay, so first, for your skin, it works. It’s real. It’s measurable in improvements of elasticity, hydration, all of that. That is major. Now, there have been lots of studies referencing the improvements collagen makes for your skin, but I don’t know why. This new published study just gives it more validation.

[00:01:07] Chalene Johnson: And remember, collagen, when your skin stops producing collagen at the rate it once did naturally, you look old overnight. I know I did. I just remember thinking like, “Wait, what is going on?” I just felt like it hit me within a period of like a year. I wasn’t thinking about my skin at all. I wasn’t thinking my skin looked old, and then it was like all of a sudden.

[00:01:30] Chalene Johnson: And I’ve heard so many of my friends experience the same things. That makes sense because, ladies and gentlemen, when you stop producing the same amount of estrogen, estrogen stimulates collagen. That’s why I put estrogen cream on my face in the morning and in the night most days. But you have to do it consistently, and that’ll help to stimulate collagen production.

[00:01:53] Chalene Johnson: But if you’re not taking estrogen, if you’re not applying estrogen topically to your skin, you need to take collagen consistently. These studies seem to indicate it’s gonna take six months or more. This is not an overnight thing. I don’t know why we expect it. Anything you do that is about foundation and not just instantaneous what happens to the top of your skin, because collagen is rebuilding a foundation, of course gonna take time.

[00:02:21] Chalene Johnson: Okay, the studies as it relates to joint pain, also legit. So if you’ve got achy joints, especially if you’re taking collagen peptides, there’s real evidence that this helps. It helps to support joints. But the part that kind of is a little concerning is as it relates to muscles. So for workouts, for recovery, for soreness, for athletic performance, basically collagen, it wasn’t…

[00:02:50] Chalene Johnson: certainly didn’t hurt, but there was just nothing meaningful in the research that matched up against a lot of the claims you hear people make online. It’s just not built the same way that protein is. Collagen, yes, it is considered a protein, but it’s not a complete protein. When we’re, we’re taking collagen for muscle development, when we’re taking collagen and we’re counting it as a protein, yeah, you need protein for better hair, better nails, better skin.

[00:03:20] Chalene Johnson: But when it comes to muscles, you need a specific type of protein. Collagen is not considered a complete protein. What do I think all of this means? Nothing. Well, actually, I think it means a lot. I think it means we’ve got a lot more evidence of the importance of taking collagen We’ve got a lot more evidence that it really does make a huge difference in your skin as well as your joints.

[00:03:41] Chalene Johnson: That’s all the reason I need. I mean, I take it every day. I like a form of collagen that you can just mix in with your water so that you don’t taste it. Like collagen, you can mix with your coffee. You can mix it with your Ninja CREAMi. Oh my God, I’ve got a story about the Ninja CREAMi. Dude. Dude. Anyways, I love collagen.

[00:04:01] Chalene Johnson: It’s easy. It’s an easy way to get my extra 10, sometimes I’ll get 20 extra grams of protein just throwing a scoop into my water. The bottom line is these studies, specifically the one, say that fast, the one that’s in Science Daily, I will link it in our show notes, seems to indicate, yeah, this stuff is working.

[00:04:21] Chalene Johnson: It’s working for your skin, it’s working for your joints, and it’s kind of a neutral when it comes to your muscles. Okay. Before I forget, I’m gonna get into the Ninja CREAMi story. This is not sponsored. I have talked many times about my Ninja CREAMi, which I know is a current obsession that will fade.

[00:04:41] Chalene Johnson: That’s why I’m not trying to tell you to go out and buy one, okay? ‘Cause I know me. I get on these kicks and I want it every single day, and then I don’t care and I don’t ever wanna see it again. For example, when I quit being a drinker. Notice I didn’t say I quit drinking, ’cause I will have, I had a few drinks here and there, Aperol Spritz when we were in Europe.

[00:05:03] Chalene Johnson: I just don’t drink anymore on a regular basis, but there might be a special occasion. I don’t know why I feel like I have to explain that every single time, but I do. When I quit drinking, I bought this very expensive nugget ice maker machine, and I told everyone they need to buy one. Well, it sits on my counter taking up space, and I haven’t used it in months.

[00:05:23] Chalene Johnson: It’s cool. I love that kind of ice, but it’s also kind of a pain in the butt. You have to pour water in it. Y- it’s just a whole thing, and I don’t use it anymore. So I’m not gonna talk you into spending money on a Ninja CREAMi, but I’m gonna tell you I’m obsessed with mine at the moment. So I’m always watching these TikToks, watching different recipes from them, okay?

[00:05:42] Chalene Johnson: The algorithm sends you, especially if you’re on TikTok, it delivers to you what it just, it’s able to read your mind. It knows what you’re gonna wanna see. Well, I open up my phone the other night, and here’s this girl holding her Ninja CREAMi container, and she just looks horrified. And she’s like, “You guys.

[00:06:04] Chalene Johnson: Oh my God. Oh my God, I’m gonna throw up. I’m gonna throw up.” Okay, warning that what I’m about to say, the story I’m about to tell you is so gross, so if you haven’t had lunch yet, skip this part. If you’re looking to cut back and kill the food noise, this is a good story. This story’s gonna help you with your food intake just today, ’cause you’re not gonna wanna eat after this.

[00:06:27] Chalene Johnson: So she’s completely grossed out, and she tells this story That she finishes eating her Ninja CREAMi, which by the way, in case you don’t know it, it’s like this machine where you can make your own frozen ice cream. But what’s been all the rage, the reason why I’m addicted to it, is because I make this super-duper 50 to 60 gram high protein, delicious, delicioso Greek frozen yogurt.

[00:06:52] Chalene Johnson: You can mix things in with it. It’s just, it’s so good. Then you start getting better and better and better making all these recipes, and then you become obsessed with it, and you can just, like, have that for dinner. It’s a meal, and it’s delicious, and it’s a dessert. She says she eats her whole Ninja CREAMi, and then she looks down at her wooden spoon, and she sees what she thinks is a parasite.

[00:07:15] Chalene Johnson: Then she’s like, “What the hell?” She’s trying to think, like, “Is this, like, a parasite that was living in the wooden spoon?” And then her and her boyfriend start freaking out, and they’re going through all the ingredients that they had put into the Ninja CREAMi, opening up the container of protein powder to see, like, were there bugs or some kind of parasites in the collagen powder.

[00:07:38] Chalene Johnson: And then they start taking apart the Ninja CREAMi machine, and they realize, and this is a fact, that lid is so hard to clean, and there is an area… It’s hard to describe. If you have one, you’re gonna wanna go look at yours. So there’s this area that’s, like, above the blade that there’s, like, this pocket where the blade spins, and water, also food, can get trapped there And what happened is maggots had bred in that area.

[00:08:19] Chalene Johnson: And so they held it up to the light and they could see. Are you puking right now? You know I got out of bed at 11:30 at night and ran to the kitchen, got a flashlight to inspect my Ninja CREAMi top. The lid, perfectly clean, but I will say this is my second Ninja CREAMi because my first one, the top got stuck on the machine, and I later discovered that it is because these things are so hard to clean.

[00:08:55] Chalene Johnson: I didn’t know you had to, like, completely disassemble the whole lid and soak the whole thing each and every single time you make a Ninja CREAMi. And if you don’t, the ingredients can get trapped up there, and there’s something about the Greek yogurt, the protein powder, that makes this kind of thick paste that can get stuck in the mechanisms, and it makes it so hard to clean.

[00:09:21] Chalene Johnson: Once I broke my first one, I kinda became a freak about cleaning mine. Thankfully, I don’t have anything growing in mine. Am I gonna still use mine? Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I’m wondering wh- why hasn’t Ninja responded to this? There’s so many videos about this. Everybody who owns one has made a video talking about that, and I’ve since seen other people show their Ninja CREAMis and show that, yeah, there’s things growing in that area.

[00:09:49] Chalene Johnson: Well, it’s a little bit about n- you know, not cleaning it, but also not knowing how to clean it. So clean your Ninja CREAMi. If you’re a woman who is in hormone decline, meaning perimenopause, menopause, every single hormone impacts your sleep. So that is why 80% of women who are perimenopausal and older have sleep disturbances.

[00:10:14] Chalene Johnson: S- say that it’s one of the things that just absolutely wrecks their energy, and it does. So for those of you who’ve tried melatonin and you’re like, “It just, I don’t know, makes me have weird dreams, or I feel groggy in the morning,” I’ve done some research, ’cause I used to think, like, are people just saying that?

[00:10:30] Chalene Johnson: No, it is a thing And I think we just assume melatonin is what we need, but your body produces melatonin. And if you are sensitive to it, I wanna share with you… Well, it’s actually one product. It’s called Sleep Breakthrough, but they have two different formulas. Okay, so when you go to this link, I’m gonna give it to you, and it’s really important you go to this link so you can find them, otherwise you kinda have to look around.

[00:10:52] Chalene Johnson: So please remember to go to chalene.com/sleep, and that’s gonna take you exactly to where I want you to be. So they have two different formulas. Let me explain this. The blueberry formula is designed for deep sleep, and deep sleep is what you need for your body to feel restored, for your body to be recovered.

[00:11:15] Chalene Johnson: This formula’s also been designed to help you, like, fall asleep faster. And when you have deep sleep, that’s why you can wake up, and even if you didn’t get a lot of sleep, if you got good deep sleep, you’re gonna wake up and feel like, “Oh, wow, I actually feel good.” And I can tell you that this is true by looking at my sleep ring scores.

[00:11:32] Chalene Johnson: Okay, then they have a second formula. It’s the tropical, okay? Now, the tropical is, it’s got different ingredients. This one is going to give you more REM sleep, so you’re gonna have enhanced dream activity, but there will be no grogginess because there’s no melatonin in it. It’s got magnolia. It’s got all these other natural ingredients that are non-hormonal that help you to stay asleep longer.

[00:11:59] Chalene Johnson: So for me, again, this is just my personal preference, I have both of them, and instead of doing two scoops of one, I do one scoop of each, ’cause I need the deep, and lately my issue has been I’ve been waking up too early and I can’t fall back to sleep. So I just do one scoop of each. You know, it’s the blueberry and the tropical.

[00:12:17] Chalene Johnson: That’s fine. They go great together. Now, this is a weird hack, but this is how I like to do it, like a bedtime cocktail. I put a splash of my oat milk coffee creamer, sweet cream, in it. Oh. And I serve it over ice, like it’s a shot, and it’s lights out. Stuff is great. I tested it for almost 45 days before I ever talked to you about it, and then I wanted to try the other, what do you call it, the other formulation to see, okay, which one do I like better.

[00:12:44] Chalene Johnson: And I wish I could tell you, like, one or the other, ’cause they do both serve different purposes. But I’m like, if you’re gonna go for it, get both and just do a scoop of each. You won’t regret it. And they do have different ingredients. There’s some overlap, but they both have a little bit of magnesium, potassium, glycine, taurine, bamboo leaf, L-theanine.

[00:13:04] Chalene Johnson: What do you call it? Magnolia bark. But they’re both a little different, so they will each serve a different purpose. And of course, because you’re a listener of the show, you get my discount. Plus, honestly, this is a great way for you to support the show, and I very much appreciate you doing so and getting great sleep.

[00:13:19] Chalene Johnson: Go to chalene.com/sleep. Okay, next story. This one is, it’s about, again, what the algorithm thinks I wanna see. And I think because I have so much drama going on right now in dealing with this penthouse situation, I had to completely go the off today and just explain to someone what I just discovered, what is going on with this penthouse situation.

[00:13:50] Chalene Johnson: Just to kind of bring you up to speed, we are what looks like we may have to enter into a, a legal battle, again, with the landlords here at our place in Miami. And I can’t get into all the details right now, but I, I just want to bring you up to speed for those of you who’ve been watching my Instagram stories, and you’ve been seeing the…

[00:14:09] Chalene Johnson: ‘Cause I’ve been documenting the sound of the jackhammer on my ceiling that takes place from 9:00 AM until 4:00 PM daily. The whole pool has been deconstructed, the pool deck, the spa. The whole building is gonna be under construction for two years, and it’s deafening where it’s directly above our ceiling.

[00:14:34] Chalene Johnson: We’re in the penthouse. It’s the ceiling of the penthouse. So I’ve been documenting the sounds. I went over the whole thing and all the things I discovered ’cause you know your girl is an Enneagram 8. She has ADHD hyper-focus investigative tendencies So once I had a sneaking suspicion that things didn’t add up, I went back and retraced every conversation, past corporations, officers in those corporations, past lawsuits involved with those individuals.

[00:15:09] Chalene Johnson: I got people on the internet to send me screenshots, because that’s one of the nice things about having a decent-sized following. Stories get around, and there’s always somebody who knows somebody who’s directly involved in my story. People like to rat out bad guys, let’s just say that. I told the whole story.

[00:15:31] Chalene Johnson: I’ll put it on Patreon. But to give everybody else kind of just the update about… ‘Cause I keep getting the same question, “Why don’t you guys just move out?” Y’all, that’s not how the law works. I mean, yeah, I guess you could move out, and go where? And then what? Forfeit the last month’s rent and the security deposit that we’ve paid?

[00:15:55] Chalene Johnson: I mean, it’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money, and where are we gonna go? We’ve got a dog, we’ve got a house. So what we’re doing right now is following the letter of the law. We’ve given them a seven-day notice to respond, and we’re in the middle of that. By next week, I’ll have some kind of an update for you hopefully.

[00:16:14] Chalene Johnson: But yeah, we absolutely have to move, because this is not where we’re gonna be living. We have to move. We’re going to move. We have to do that legally. That means we have to find another location that’s suitable. It’s just, it’s hard. It’s pretty hard. I’ll tell you what, we’ve been out looking at places. It is ridiculous how little you get for a lot of money in Miami Beach.

[00:16:40] Chalene Johnson: Miami Beach is, it’s gotta be a bubble that’s about to burst because the housing market here does not make sense. So we’ve been looking at places. It’s gonna be a whole thing. We probably won’t be moving into a new place until, I don’t know, for a couple of months. Do we have to stay here? We don’t have to, but what’s the alternative?

[00:16:59] Chalene Johnson: We’re requesting a major abatement because right now, during the day from 9:00 to 4:00, it is so loud. It’s insanely loud. We have to go and we have to find alternate places to work and take our beautiful, adorable Penelope princess. But we can’t always do that every day. We’ve just had to move things around.

[00:17:21] Chalene Johnson: It’s a big pain in the ass. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. No one’s dying. Our family is safe. Our family is healthy. I always try to put things in perspective. I’m like, we have the money that if, if we needed to move out tomorrow permanently, we could do that. It’s just a pain. It’s just inconvenient.

[00:17:42] Chalene Johnson: But I will say this, so far my track record is four for four. I don’t lose lawsuits. I think that God sometimes puts… Oh, I shouldn’t say anything more because I’m gonna get all worked up, and then I’m gonna say something that my attorney’s like, “Uh, you can’t say those kinds of things about somebody,” or, “You’re gonna get sued for defamation.”

[00:18:06] Chalene Johnson: As much as I would like to go all the way off and tell you exactly how I feel, I can’t do that. I shouldn’t do that, so I won’t do that But the whole reason why I brought that up is I was saying that, like, I really enjoy getting caught up in stupid drama on TikTok. I love it. And if you’re looking for a harmless pastime, this one’s really fun because it’s kind of like, you know, gossip, even though you can feel guilty when you do gossip, it’s still kind of fun to do.

[00:18:41] Chalene Johnson: I love getting served up internet gossip. I have no business getting drawn into, but I get drawn into it. And for some reason, TikTok thinks that I’m either a, a bride or somehow connected to wedding planning, because I am all up in the

[00:18:59] Clip: TikTok

[00:19:00] Chalene Johnson: wedding dress drama stories. So the first one I want to tell you about, ’cause these are…

[00:19:05] Chalene Johnson: They’re all pretty interesting. Pretty interesting. They’re interesting because it’s like, really? This is what people are worried about? Okay, so let me tell you about the first one. It’s this dress company called Undone by Kate. The story started with this young woman who was like, “Okay, now that this is all behind me, I want to tell the story about my wedding dress drama.”

[00:19:30] Chalene Johnson: She wants to have a custom-made dress made, a custom wedding gown made, and she goes into all the details on why she had done the math, and with the alterations, it was basically gonna be about the same amount that she wanted to spend on basically a dress off the rack plus alterations. Okay. So she picks this woman who makes custom wedding gowns, and she’s very trendy, very popular.

[00:19:58] Chalene Johnson: She- And she’s also very young. The woman who owns Undone by Kate looks to be, in my estimation, like, maybe, like, 28. I’m just guessing. Young to be a dress designer. Okay. She’s just, like, popped off with all of the kind of fashion influencers on Instagram and TikTok, mainly because one of her dresses was worn by Selena Gomez, and that kind of put her on the map.

[00:20:28] Chalene Johnson: And then she starts making these custom-made wedding gowns for different fashion influencers, and they’re not cheap. We’re talking, like, three to six thousand dollars. People see these, like, these are big accounts, you know? And that’s the funny thing about social media. Someone the other day said to me, I can’t remember who I was talking to, but he’s like, “What’s your Instagram?”

[00:20:52] Chalene Johnson: I tell him. He’s like, “Whoa! You’re famous.” I said, “I’m famous?” And he’s like, “You have almost a million followers.” I’m like- In today’s day and age, that doesn’t make somebody famous. First of all, a lot of people buy followers, so that doesn’t mean anything. Secondly, do you understand how many literally millions of people have almost a million followers or have over a million followers?

[00:21:18] Chalene Johnson: It’s a lot, and I can list influencer after influencer with 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, 11 million followers, and you’ll be like, “Who?” You know what I’m saying? Like, it has a lot to do with, like, your age, your industry, those kinds of things. Okay, a couple of these, like, really big fashion influencers start getting dresses from this gal, Undone by Kate.

[00:21:43] Chalene Johnson: But just the name, Undone, should be a red flag. So this girl starts to make her dress, or commissions her to have this dress made. It’s a really super basic dress. She shows in her story on TikTok the sketches and the images that she’s going to use as inspiration for the dress that she wants Kate to make for her.

[00:22:08] Chalene Johnson: She details the whole story. It’s very long. Basically, she does a Zoom call, she shows her all the designs, the sketches. That’s her first appointment. Second appointment is agreeing to all the sketches. “Oh, yes, that’s exactly what I want.” Next appointment is she goes in person with her measurements and everything have already been taken, and they’ve made

[00:22:29] Chalene Johnson: I forget what the term is, but they’ve, they’ve made, like, a mock-up of the dress, but not in the exact same material. And she goes and tries it on, and she’s just like, “Ugh.” It’s, like, not even close. But she’s like, “Okay, it’s okay. I’ve got months and months. My wedding isn’t until August 1st.” So she gives her all the changes she wants made to the dress, and Kate’s like, “No problem.

[00:22:50] Chalene Johnson: We’re, we’ll do that.” So she comes back for her next fitting, which is, like, a month later,

[00:22:54] Clip: and

[00:22:54] Chalene Johnson: it’s,

[00:22:55] Clip: like, a completely different dress.

[00:22:58] Chalene Johnson: Like, so different. And she’s showing all these pictures when she’s telling the stories. It is literally a different dress. That has her real nervous, and she makes all these changes, goes back for a third fitting and it’s worse.

[00:23:16] Chalene Johnson: And again, she’s showing the pictures and you’re like, “What in the … It’s definitely not the same dress. They’ve definitely started over from scratch.” Her wedding is fast approaching, and she’s kind of freaking out. So I’m gonna let you listen to … This is that first video that she posted. Which, by the way, when she posted this, this girl, the one who commissioned the wedding gown, she had very, very, very small following.

[00:23:42] Chalene Johnson: She just, you know, was doing her own little story time. So here she is kind of near the end of her story when she realizes she has to make a decision.

[00:23:51] Clip: This point, I’m freaking out. This is May. My wedding is in August, okay? I’m like, “The dress is not gonna get done by these people,” because the notes that I gave them in November that I’ve now reiterated and I’ve, like, raised the flags, they’re, like, still not taking place.

[00:24:05] Clip: So I email Kim and I say, “Thank you so much for all of your hard work. I’ve really appreciated you and your team being so dedicated to my dress, but I think I need to end our relationship here because I’m not seeing the progress I need to see, and this close to my wedding, like, I only have so many options.

[00:24:19] Clip: But, like, thank you for all your hard work from here. Can we please arrange a partial refund?”

[00:24:23] Chalene Johnson: So at that point in the story, she asks a person that she calls Kim. By the way- Very respectful. She never named the dressmaker or the company. She said, “Let’s just call her Kim,” even though I’ve since told you that the name of the company was Undone by Kate.

[00:24:40] Chalene Johnson: Okay, so she explains that Kim, who’s actually Kate, she asked her for a partial refund. Well, she goes on to finish the story and says that Kate says, “No, I’ve already done too much work, and I’m not gonna give you a refund.” And to just quickly summarize this girl’s story is, like, it was just a nightmare.

[00:25:00] Chalene Johnson: She finally eventually did get, I think, a partial refund, but she was just like, “You know, what a nightmare,” like, “What an absolute nightmare, and they treated me so poorly,” blah, blah, blah. Okay, she just did the story time, just entertaining people. She never named the girl. Everybody in the comments figured out who it was because the Internet is filled with Internet sleuths, and I love it.

[00:25:23] Chalene Johnson: Then the girl, Undone by Kate, is getting all this, like, massive hate on her page. Her page is coming unglued. So then Kate makes a response to that video. She didn’t have to identify herself, but she did. She called herself out. So here’s a little snippet from Kate. Hi, my name is Kate, and I’m the founder and designer of Undone by Kate.

[00:25:49] Chalene Johnson: You’ve probably seen a video circulating online about an unfinished wedding dress that was created here in my studio, and I’m here to provide some additional context and clarity on the situation. And then the girl that makes the original video, I think her name is Alexander, she was pretty cool.

[00:26:03] Clip: Hi, Kate.

[00:26:04] Clip: You have me blocked, but I have seen the video. It’s been sent to me. I did not realize you were receiving death threats. That’s ridiculous. You guys, it’s a dress. It’s not that big of a deal, and it’s my dress. I’m the only one who’s, like, allowed to be mad about it, and, like, that’s way too intense and, like, way too far and ridiculous.

[00:26:18] Chalene Johnson: So she was like, “Okay, I cannot believe my video went viral, number one. Number two, hi, Kate. I know you blocked me, but just so you know, I never named you. You named yourself. I never named you. To everyone on the Internet, it’s my dress. You don’t need to go attack her or to be angry on my behalf. It’s just a story, and it’s just a dress.

[00:26:41] Chalene Johnson: Let’s not take it so seriously. Why are you attacking this other woman?” People were like, I guess, saying horrible, crude things, and people always say they get death threats. Really? Death threats over a wedding dress? Weird. But anyways, the girl who told the original story, she was just like, “Can everybody chill?”

[00:27:00] Chalene Johnson: You guys, this story, I’ve just scratched the surface. And if you like a dumb, distracting drama to entertain you, just go to TikTok and type in Undone by Kate dress. Because every bride that has ever been wronged by Undone by Kate has since made a video, and then all the Internet sleuths have gone through and taken screenshots of every single video that Undone by Kate has ever Published, and they found the original wedding, and they found the photos from the wedding, and then they zoom in and they find flaws of the dress.

[00:27:37] Chalene Johnson: And then dressmakers are making videos about all the problems in the construction of the dresses. And then past employees have made videos talking about how they didn’t get paid. And then there’s people who’ve made these other videos saying like, “Oh, here’s what’s happening. Undone by Kate isn’t actually a designer or a seamstress.

[00:27:55] Chalene Johnson: She just is good at, like, sewing weird pieces together, and she got really famous, or well-known I should say, on Instagram for doing that during COVID, and somehow she by accident got into this dress space. And what she’s actually doing, here’s the tea Is she has dressmakers, a bunch of them, from different little shops in New York City.

[00:28:21] Chalene Johnson: And the reason why that girl’s, this is the hypothesis from the experts, the reason why that Alexander’s dress was so different every single time she went to go try it on is because it was a different dress. Each and every time people have said, “What’s going on is Kate is going to a different dressmaker and saying like, ‘Can you make this?'”

[00:28:43] Chalene Johnson: But of all of the women, young women, who’ve had their dresses made by Undone by Kate, I do have to agree, they’re horrible in my opinion. So bad. And these girls are paying like 3 to $6,000 for the just the dumbest dresses. Like, you can do better on Revolve by a landslide. But because I got caught up in this rabbit hole of the wedding dress drama, a new one emerged this weekend.

[00:29:14] Chalene Johnson: Okay, so here’s kind of crazy. Brielle Biermann. Now, if you don’t know that name, I’m gonna explain who she is. She is the daughter of Kim Zolciak from Real Housewives of Atlanta, and then she also had her own show with her whole family, Don’t Be Tardy for the Party. She married, like, that football player.

[00:29:34] Chalene Johnson: She has, like, 1,000,001 kids. It was a fun show, but now she’s divorced from him. That’s a whole messy mess. Her two daughters grew up on the show, basically. Now they’re both adults. One of them is on, it’s like a Bravo show. I forget what it’s called, but it’s like the kids of the Bravo stars, and they all live in New York City.

[00:29:56] Chalene Johnson: Anyways, one of the kids is on that show. Brielle Biermann is Kim Zolciak’s daughter. She’s getting married. She’s really cute. She’s a sweet girl. They’ve all had way too much plastic surgery for their age in my opinion, and I know you’re like, “Shaleen, how dare you comment w- when you tell everyone else not to comment?”

[00:30:14] Chalene Johnson: I know. I’m a hypocrite. Get over it. These girls are really young. I mean, by age 18 they had so much filler, lip filler, and so many cosmetic procedures, you’re like, what is there to look forward to? And at a certain point, I personally, I find that some of these young girls that do all the facial stuff young, you know, like that’s the trend right now.

[00:30:35] Chalene Johnson: Women in their, I wanna say girls, in their 30s getting facelifts, getting lower facelifts. Oh, God. Save some for the rest of us Put in your time. You have not earned that. Your face is not sagging. Calm down. Save the Botox for the rest of us. You don’t need any filler, just wear a little makeup. Anyways, so I open up my Instagram, and I’m seeing all these stories about how this very well-known fashion influencer, her handle is Acquired Style, and she’s got, like, 2 million followers on TikTok, like, a million followers on Instagram, and her real name is Bridget.

[00:31:17] Chalene Johnson: Her company’s also called Acquired Style Interestingly enough, she’s one of the fashion influencers that helped to make Undone by Kate’s business to help put it on the map, but not by wearing a wedding dress. She had Kate design her some other kind of dress. Okay, but there’s a connection here. So I open up my TikTok, and everyone is talking about a photo has leaked from her wedding over the weekend, like just one photo, because she was saving the whole thing to do this, like, big reveal.

[00:31:51] Chalene Johnson: Now, if you are of a certain age and you’re not yet married and you have a big following online, the event of your wedding means perhaps millions and millions of views of your content. That’s a really big deal. That and babies. Like, having a wedding, having a baby of a certain age, if you’ve got certain amount of followers, it is a money-making excursion.

[00:32:19] Chalene Johnson: And so these girls, these weddings are more elaborate than Princess Diana. They are insane, okay? And so they carefully control the media like as if they are Taylor Swift, and they don’t release any of their, the photos, and they don’t let anyone know what the dress looks like. And then one influencer outdoes the other.

[00:32:42] Chalene Johnson: There’s this influencer. This is like a, a whole nother story. Her name is Shay Sullivan. I can’t remember what her husband’s name. It doesn’t matter. He’s a boy. He’s handsome. But she is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Like, I’m like, “What is this? This can’t be real. Is this AI? Is there really a bride this beautiful?”

[00:33:02] Chalene Johnson: I’m not even kidding you. Is there really a wedding that looks like this? It is the most unbelievable, stunning, gorgeous wedding I’ve ever seen in my life. Now, granted, she’s a model, and she looks like just that kind of conventional Guess model. You remember, like, from the ’90s? What was her name? Anna Nicole Smith.

[00:33:26] Chalene Johnson: Just that, like, really voluptuous lips and not, like, overly skinny but beautiful curves and thick, thick, gorgeous blonde hair. You know what I mean? Like that ’90s kind of supermodel look. Anyways, this girl, Shay Sullivan, she’s super cute. Their wedding, my jaw is on the floor. It is insane. I’m gonna put a link to it in our show notes ’cause you need to go see it.

[00:33:55] Chalene Johnson: You’re gonna trip out. Okay, that’s a different story. I don’t know that there’s any drama around Shay. I’m sure there is. There’s drama around all these people And the reason why there’s drama around the dumbest of things, how dare someone post a photo from somebody’s wedding dr- Like, this really dumb drama and why we all are up in each other’s business is so that we can distract ourselves from the very real fears we all have that the AI robots are gonna kill us all, and none of us are gonna have jobs, and what are we gonna do with our lives?

[00:34:26] Chalene Johnson: So I know, let’s just focus on other dumb things going on in other people’s lives. Allow me to take just a moment to interrupt myself to talk to you about your skin. As we age, one of the things at least that I found most frustrating was just looking down at my skin and going like, “What happened? What is going on?”

[00:34:26] Chalene Johnson: So I know, let’s just focus on other dumb things going on in other people’s lives. Allow me to take just a moment to interrupt myself to talk to you about your skin. As we age, one of the things at least that I found most frustrating was just looking down at my skin and going like, “What happened? What is going on?”

[00:34:44] Chalene Johnson: You know, as we start to lose collagen and estrogen, your skin texture and the way that it holds moisture, it completely changes. I was drenching myself in lotions and just not seeing a difference. And then I had a friend recommend a product called OneSkin. You’ve heard me talk about it before. This stuff makes a huge difference.

[00:35:04] Chalene Johnson: So if that’s something you’re struggling with, just skin that feels really dry or crepey, trust me when I say you wanna try OneSkin. I love their full-body lotion. It just goes on so nicely. It’s light. There’s no fragrance. There’s no toxic ingredients. That’s very, very important. It works wonderfully for sensitive skin.

[00:35:23] Chalene Johnson: It’s been dermatologist tested, and the stuff is just amazing. It’s loaded with peptides, so you’re just gonna feel a difference. Trust me when I say this. But here’s the key. This is my recommendation. This is girlfriend to girlfriend. Get the SPF tinted moisturizer for your face. It is amazing. I’ve tried a bunch of tinted SPFs, and I didn’t feel like they were tinted.

[00:35:44] Chalene Johnson: Do you know what I mean? Like, this literally kinda smooths out your complexion. You don’t even need to wear makeup. I swear. I’m saying that, then you know it’s really good. I also love their full-body SPF, which is really important if you’re out walking in the sun or even if you’re just exposed in the snow.

[00:36:00] Chalene Johnson: You’re still getting exposed to sun, and you wanna make sure that your face stays nice and young. You don’t want age spots or sunspots. And OneSkin has amazing products. Because they are a show sponsor, you get a nice little discount. Go to cheline.com/spf. It’s also a wonderful way to support the show, and I really appreciate that.

[00:36:18] Chalene Johnson: Again, it’s cheline.com/spf, but you can find all of their products from that link. Check it out So anyways, back to Acquired Style, that bride. So she has her big wedding. Everybody’s dying to see, like, what dress did she wear? Oh my God, she’s a style icon. We can’t wait to see it. This photo gets leaked of her from her wedding.

[00:36:41] Chalene Johnson: It’s just, like, one kind of grainy photo, and people put two and two together, and they’re like, “Oh my God, it’s a Vera Wang dress.” Well, the very next day, the wedding’s on Saturday. On Sunday, Brielle Berman posts some content, like a bunch of content, of her trying on wedding gowns, ’cause her wedding is impending.

[00:37:00] Chalene Johnson: And she posts this photo of her in the exact same dress that Acquired Style wore on Saturday, but hadn’t officially released the photo. And in Brielle’s caption, she wrote something like, “The dress I almost picked,” or something like, “Stunning. Love it, but,” you know, “it’s not the dress I picked,” whatever. So the internet goes berserk attacking Brielle, and I’ve watched all these videos.

[00:37:28] Chalene Johnson: I’m like, “Are you hoes serious right now?” They’re all like, “That’s so tacky that she would go in trying that dress to try to outdo Acquired Style.” Well, first of all People know the name Brielle Burman. I bet less than 1% of my audience knows the name Acquired Style. Brielle has 1.3 million, but she’s also on TV.

[00:37:53] Chalene Johnson: You know what I mean? So it- there’s a big difference. And do we really think that Brielle was like, “Oh, my God, I’m so jealous that that’s her dress, so I’m gonna do her dirty. I just saw this picture. I’m gonna find the dress today on Saturday. I’m gonna go try it on. I’m gonna do a whole photo shoot in it, and I’m gonna post up something on it tomorrow”?

[00:38:18] Chalene Johnson: It’s so dumb. Like, some of the conspiracies that happen online, I watch them just because I can’t believe people are this dumb. Do you really think people would do that? Like, there’s all these conspiracies right now about the Clancy murders, that the husband basically had all this planned, and that it- it’s him, that he convinced her to murder the kids, and he’s the one that w- was behind her voices in her head.

[00:38:48] Chalene Johnson: What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Was he a husband? Probably. Could he have done a lot better? Probably. I mean, for sure. Is the whole case just absolutely the saddest thing ever? Yes. But, like, some of the weird conspiracies that pop up, and just about any story that’s got legs, these weird conspiracies pop up.

[00:39:15] Chalene Johnson: It’s like, what are we doing? So that’s the big controversy about Brielle. So poor Brielle, she makes a post. She’s like, “Wait a second. Okay, first of all, I know who this person is, but I didn’t see her photo.” A, B, she picked a beautiful dress. I just posted my own content. You can ask my … You know, I will have my social media manager testify under oath if she needs to that she told me two weeks prior, “You need to start posting more bride content, more bridal content because, you know, we’ve, we’ve gotta monetize the out of this thing.

[00:39:53] Chalene Johnson: Let’s schedule something to come out on Sunday. That’s our biggest day for views.” So literally, this is like the whole conversation, and I get it because we have these conversations with my team. “Yeah, let’s post it on this day at this time.” This content had already been filmed. So Brielle posted receipts.

[00:40:11] Chalene Johnson: She posted, you know, when you do an Instagram photo or a video or whatever, if you click on the I, letter I underneath the image, it gives you information about the metadata about the video or the photo, like when it was taken, in what location. So she posted a screenshot of the content and the screenshot of the metadata from all of those videos and photos to prove that it was something like two weeks prior to her posting it, and she’s like, “But you guys, like, what are you doing?”

[00:40:43] Chalene Johnson: Like, it’s so funny. But man, oh, man, there’s that controversy. And then there’s the controversy, do you guys know about Nara Smith? Oh my gosh, those videos. I don’t even know if you’re interested in any of this. Maybe you’re not. So let’s bring it on down to AI Town. Let’s talk about what happened or what we’ve learned about AI this week that I think is so important for you to know.

[00:41:07] Chalene Johnson: And I try to at least once a week, I try to share a story or a perspective or something that’s happening on the AI front, just so that you aren’t left in the dark. I wanna really help you stay informed and kind of ahead of this stuff, right? Like, especially the things that I think are gonna impact our future.

[00:41:33] Chalene Johnson: And the way that I do this is, number one, I follow quite a few female AI experts, a few men too, but I try to follow the people who are reporting the news on this stuff. I don’t have a list in front of me of the people that I follow. And, and if that’s something you’re like, “I, I would like to follow those people too,” leave me a comment below this episode and just say, “I want the AI experts,” and I’ll, I’ll share the list of the people I follow.

[00:41:59] Chalene Johnson: Anyways, one of the ladies that I follow on TikTok, she writes a tech newsletter, and she’s been doing it for, like, five years now. And back in June, she started conducting her own AI experiment. Every time AI would give her, you know, an answer. So, for example, I might be doing some research on collagen studies, so I might go to AI and have it do some research for me, and it’s gonna give me citations.

[00:42:26] Chalene Johnson: Well, every time she got a citation, whether she was using ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or whatever, she would write down the source. And she said she happened to notice– She started to realize, like, “Huh, this is weird. I don’t… I can’t find this source that AI has cited.” And she would click on the source, and it would say, like, “Not available.”

[00:42:48] Chalene Johnson: So she starts digging and doing some more digging, and specifically, she w- started doing some research on how AI search engines, like, how were they deciding if she would say, for example, “What is the best running shoe for long distance?” Then she was checking to see, like, where is AI getting its sources? So she wasn’t just looking at scientific research the way I was.

[00:43:14] Chalene Johnson: She was looking at other kinds of resources as it relates to its recommendations for shopping. So she checks to see these sources, and she then checks Consumer Reports. And, you know, you know Consumer Reports. They’ve been testing washing machines and car seats since, you know, nineteen thirty-six. Your mom trusted them.

[00:43:36] Chalene Johnson: I still trust them. Everybody trusts them. Well, it turns out Consumer Reports basically on their website, which a lot of these shopping sites can do, they can install a block that blocks AI bots from basically scraping their information. In, in other words, they’re blocking them from going in there and taking any of their information that they have, you know, worked for years to try to create, and just taking all that information, and then AI gets to produce it and pretend like, you know, they’ve done all the research.

[00:44:15] Chalene Johnson: Are you following what I’m saying? And so a lot of these websites are like, “No, AI, you don’t get to scrape all of our information. We still wanna be the source.” Okay? That’s why they’re blocking these tools that just– they crawl all over the internet looking for information, right? Okay, so, well, this AI blocking is happening everywhere, and there’s tons of real research on this.

[00:44:36] Chalene Johnson: And, and one study checked the top news sites and found that among the really high-quality ones, only about a third of them, and that’s not very many, actually let AI crawlers survey their information. The rest of them have this… It’s almost like a firewall, right, that prevents AI from coming in and scanning the information and then putting it into its learning models, okay?

[00:45:03] Chalene Johnson: Now sit with that for a second. So that means when you’re asking ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or whatever for an answer, and you think, “Okay, it’s searching the whole web, and it’s giving me the best information,” it’s not The more time that passes, the less places that AI is actually getting its information from.

[00:45:31] Chalene Johnson: Now what’s happening is it’s reading the content that’s on websites that haven’t, like, locked the doors, okay? And some of what’s left that AI is crawling and scanning is actually AI-written content, written specifically so other AI agents and bots will find it and quote it. Now, how do I know this?

[00:45:59] Chalene Johnson: Because there’s lots of providers, service providers, who reach out to myself and, you know, probably anyone who’s got a website every single week saying, like, “Hey, we can write all of this AI content that’s been specifically written so that AI finds it,” so that… Because nobody does a Google search anymore.

[00:46:20] Chalene Johnson: Everybody goes to ChatGPT or, or Claude or wherever for their search. Now people aren’t worried about showing up on Google, they wanna show up in AI results. I’ve noticed this. I’ve noticed, like, I can search, “Tell me about a female expert in blah, blah, blah,” and it’ll just give me the same names and the same sites over and over.

[00:46:37] Chalene Johnson: I’m like, that’s so weird, and this is probably why. Why am I talking about this, and how does this impact you? Okay. Let me play for you this little clip from this expert. I’ve logged every source that my AI has been giving me since June, not the answers, but the sources or the citations, and this really weird thing has been happening.

[00:46:59] Chalene Johnson: So 60% of high-credibility news sites now block AI crawlers, and the reason is this crazy stat, which is that traffic from bots and crawlers is now greater than human traffic on the web. So when you search something on Claude or ChatGPT with browsing on, it’s not necessarily reading the internet, it’s reading a part of the internet that still lets those crawlers in.

[00:47:17] Chalene Johnson: Let’s call this the unlocked web. And here’s what the unlocked web is actually made up of now. Researchers checked 26,000 sources that AI search engines had cited, and one in six was written by another AI. There’s now this entire supply side building pages specifically for AI to pick up. It’s AI cloning versions of existing sites or creating listicles.

[00:47:38] Chalene Johnson: 44% of everything ChatGPT cites is from a best of listicle, including lists where the brand ranked itself number one. Now, I don’t wanna contribute to misinformation, so I will tell you this. The numbers she mentions in that clip, she said one in six and then 44%. Myself and my team, we could not find ironically, one single study to verify those claims.

[00:48:07] Chalene Johnson: I don’t know, might be real, or it might be just another case of somebody reporting something, and because they’re saying it, we think it’s true. Either way, I’m not gonna tell you that that stat is accurate. I don’t know. But what I do believe to be accurate, because I’ve h-heard more than a few experts saying this.

[00:48:27] Chalene Johnson: Here’s the piece I really need you to understand, okay? When you search for an answer on Claude or whatever AI tool you’re using, we no longer can really assume it’s the best information. What it is, a more accurate way to describe it, the way I look at it, is this is what AI has found to be the top answer from the sources where it has access.

[00:48:56] Chalene Johnson: Does that make sense? Which is very different from when I used to do a query on AI, I would feel like, “Oh, wow, this is an unbiased scan of the entire internet and all available information, and it’s done all the research for me.” Well, I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think it’s safer to say, okay, this answer is the best of.

[00:49:20] Chalene Johnson: It’s the best of where AI is allowed to go and look, and also a lot of where AI is now allowed to go and look is actually created by AI. See what I’m saying? I’m not telling you at all to quit using any of these models. I use them daily. I’m just saying I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this. I have. I trust the information less and less And that’s a problem.

[00:49:52] Chalene Johnson: I think the sources are questionable, and I think the bigger problem, y’all, tell me if you agree, is that so many people don’t get this. They think if they got the answer from AI… They’re letting AI make life choices for them. They’re letting AI help them make the decision on whether they should leave their partner or if their child has a learning disability.

[00:50:16] Chalene Johnson: They’re allowing AI to shape their opinions and to do their research and to dictate so many things that we just have to be more suspicious. We have to question it more. We have to prompt it better. We have to check the sources, and we also have to put less trust in it, in my opinion, especially because there are quite a few stories this week, four major AI companies that basically– I’m not gonna go into all the details ’cause it’s kinda boring, but just know this.

[00:50:51] Chalene Johnson: They had set up these AI agents, and they were testing to see their capabilities off the internet, to see, like, okay, what would happen if it was challenged this way morally? What would it do if it wasn’t given– These are agents. This is not AI language models where you can ask it a question and do some research for you.

[00:51:12] Chalene Johnson: AI agents, as you know, those are basically system learnings that have the ability to make decisions and take action for you. Like, you can have an, a, quote, “AI agent,” I do this all the time, go into, say, for example, Dropbox, and organize my files. I don’t have to have a human do that. I can have an AI agent do that by giving it instructions, by giving it access to all these things, okay?

[00:51:34] Chalene Johnson: So they were testing these agents to find out, like, what do we need to be aware of that they could do if they weren’t given the instructions and they’re– they kinda have a mind of their own, like, what could they do? Well, there’s just four separate instances where these AI agents, under very controlled circumstances that they refer to as a sandbox, where they basically have pulled it off of the internet, they pulled it off of, they thought, any place where they could create damage.

[00:52:04] Chalene Johnson: And these agents are breaking out of the sandbox. I know this sounds kinda crazy. But they figure out how to get on the internet by themselves. And in two cases, they hacked other companies and their domains to get information. And That’s scary. And I think we have to pay attention to these kinds of stories because like the story I told you on Wednesday about Tony Robbins and the robot dog, y’all, this is happening, and we need to pay attention, and we need to convince our lawmakers to put on the brakes.

[00:52:44] Chalene Johnson: We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but we can slow the genie down, and we need to, ’cause that’s terrifying. Ugh, it’s so terrifying that I think what you’ll need to do right now is to cleanse your palate and go watch some of this outrageously ridiculous, frivolous internet drama on wedding dresses.

[00:53:09] Chalene Johnson: And if you wanna see the most gorgeous wedding you’ve ever seen in your entire life, in my opinion, go check out Shay Sullivan’s wedding. Holy cow. All right, I, I can’t wait to hear what you think about all this stuff. I love you. I mean it. I’ll talk to you soon