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0:46

Hello and welcome back to the iHeart Podcast

0:48

Speaker series. I'm Will Pearson, President

0:50

of iHeart Podcast. As you know, we like to get

0:52

together each week and talk about a different podcast

0:55

or family of podcasts. Today is going to

0:57

be a super interesting one. We are going to be

0:59

talking about the show Betrayal, which

1:01

became a huge hit for us,

1:03

and it's in the true crime space, you know, and

1:05

it's maybe worth stopping out for just a second

1:07

and talking about why we do true

1:10

crime or how we think about true crime

1:12

here at iHeart you know, when we do

1:14

shows in this space, maybe going back to some

1:17

of our earliest shows in the true

1:19

crime space, and you think about shows like

1:21

Atlanta Monster, or you think about shows

1:24

like Happy Face. We often think

1:26

before we greenlight a show, you

1:28

know, why are we doing this show?

1:30

And what we never want to do is

1:33

produce true crime just for the sake

1:35

of talking about crime. Whenever we

1:37

think about a show that we want to green light, we

1:39

think about it through a lens of what

1:41

is important to tell about this story.

1:44

In the case of Atlanta Monster, with

1:46

the tragic disappearances of predominantly

1:49

young boys, young Black boys in the

1:51

city of Atlanta a couple of decades ago,

1:54

we were trying to tell this larger social

1:56

story, this story of relationship

1:58

with police department, with the relationship

2:01

of communities. As we tell a story

2:03

like Happy Face, the story of Melissa

2:06

Moore, the daughter of the Happy Face serial

2:08

killer, we want to tell the stories of

2:10

those that are victims in different ways.

2:13

And today we're talking about the show

2:16

Betrayal. We're going to be talking to Andrea

2:18

Gunning, who was the host of the first

2:20

season, and we're talking with Ashley

2:23

Litton, who was actually our season

2:25

two Betrayal Survivor to

2:27

talk about each of their seasons.

2:29

But Andrea Ashley, thanks for

2:32

spending.

2:32

Some time with us, Thanks for having us.

2:34

Yes, thank you. So I'm going to go back

2:36

to season one, which which featured,

2:38

you know, this story of betrayal about a

2:40

woman named Jennifer her now

2:42

ex husband Spencer, and Andrea,

2:45

I'll toss to you first and get a sense what was

2:47

it that drew you to this story,

2:49

and maybe just share a little bit about the story

2:51

of what we were trying to do with this first season.

2:54

Yeah.

2:54

So, I had first gotten a call from Gen's agent

2:57

because she works in the reality TV space,

2:59

and that's Glass Entertainment groups Bread

3:01

and Butter, and he set up a call

3:04

and when we spoke to Jennifer for

3:06

the first time, what was apparent to me was

3:08

her pain was so palpable, like

3:10

she had just lost what she thought

3:12

her life actually was. And I

3:15

had gone through like similar infidelity,

3:17

and I kind of understood, not to

3:20

the gravity that she experienced, but I could feel

3:22

her pain within myself. It was identifiable,

3:25

it was relatable, and I just wanted to help

3:27

her understand and make sense

3:29

of what happened to her and have her

3:31

try to figure out who the man she married

3:34

actually was, and it just felt so relatable

3:36

to me and I couldn't ignore her

3:38

pain, and that's really why I gravitated

3:41

to the story.

3:42

Prettyone watching or listening today that has

3:44

not had a chance to check out season one,

3:47

and there probably aren't that many of them, because again, this

3:49

podcast hit number one. It's

3:51

now searched twice, which is again,

3:53

as we try to tell stories like this, it

3:56

really is nice to see audiences catching

3:58

on and wanting to share these stories. But

4:00

for those that haven't listened, can you share a little

4:02

bit about what that was, what the betrayal

4:04

was. Yeah, digging into with the story

4:07

absolutely so.

4:08

Jen was confronted with

4:11

the fact that her husband was being arrested

4:13

for sexually assaulting a student. He was a

4:15

three time teacher of the Year in Georgia.

4:17

He was a big person in their community.

4:20

It's the love of her life.

4:21

If they were college sweethearts.

4:22

They broke up for a while, then kind of found each other later

4:24

in life, and you know, through him

4:26

being arrested and then she was like, what's going

4:29

on? I need to kind of investigate more and

4:31

soon found evidence of like affair

4:34

after affair people, she knew random

4:36

women all over the map. I mean, he basically

4:39

was unfaithful to her almost every day of their

4:41

marriage and they were married for seven years.

4:43

And so the podcast is really her understanding

4:46

and speaking with the sexual assault victim, the other

4:48

women that he had affairs with, and then

4:50

also to experts to really get to understand

4:53

who her husband actually

4:55

is and figure out what a perpetrator

4:57

is and what their behavior is like. And you know, he

4:59

grew a lot of his victims, and so we talk

5:02

and explore grooming. So that's essentially

5:04

what we did with season one.

5:05

And the season, like we said, you know, really

5:08

took off and in a lot of ways, this first

5:10

story of betrayal became bigger

5:13

than I think many of us thought it would. Any

5:15

thoughts from you on as this got out into

5:17

the world and started to build this audience

5:20

and again searched to the top

5:22

of the charts, I mean, what were your thoughts

5:24

on all of this?

5:25

You know, I, Jenn and I were like, We're

5:27

going to upload to omni and then

5:29

get out of the country. It's kind of what

5:31

was our plan because he didn't know how

5:33

it would do. You never know in podcasting, you

5:35

just don't know. And so like I think a week

5:38

in I had went away with my mom and

5:40

she called me and she was just crying, and we just.

5:42

Couldn't believe it. We just couldn't believe.

5:44

It was performing so well and people were really resonating

5:46

with it. It goes back to my initial phone call with

5:48

her. There is just something relatable

5:51

about her pain. Unfortunately.

5:54

I think different people, especially women,

5:57

can see themselves in Jen. And I know Ashley,

5:59

that's certainly.

5:59

How you felt.

6:00

And I think that there's something to be said about

6:03

exploring difficult conversations. I mean,

6:05

Jen had to sit down with the high school student

6:07

that he really damaged and hurt, and

6:10

she gave and provided that space to Jen. And

6:12

Jen had conversations with the women he

6:14

had affairs with and they carried a lot of

6:16

shame and she kind of relieved them of

6:18

that that shame and that pain. And so

6:20

there was something really powerful there. And so it's

6:23

complicated. Life isn't black and white, it's

6:25

gray, and I think people appreciate when

6:27

we focus on that gray.

6:29

Yeah,

6:46

you talk about a lot of big ideas which sometimes

6:48

do sit in that gray space. Concepts

6:52

like betrayal trauma as something

6:54

that we often don't talk a whole lot about. Do you

6:56

mind talking about that? And then would love to hear

6:58

from Ashlow a bit as well.

7:00

You know, when something like this happens where

7:02

makes you fundamentally look at your life,

7:04

like where you are now in your past, you're kind of

7:06

confronted of like what was real, what wasn't

7:09

real, and so that makes

7:11

you feel extremely unsafe. I

7:13

never heard of betrayal trauma until I worked

7:15

on this show, and I thought it was such an important

7:17

thing to talk about because it made a lot of sense.

7:20

Of course Jen is afraid. Of course

7:22

Jen is scared. Of Course he's gonna have trust

7:24

issues. So let's explore that because it's

7:26

a lot of collateral damage.

7:28

Yeah.

7:28

I mean, actually you know that better than I do.

7:30

Yeah, Ashley, I would love to hear what made

7:32

you decide to reach out? Because you were one

7:34

of the millions of listeners for the

7:36

first season of Betrayal and you

7:39

were compelled to then reach out to Andrea

7:41

and sort of share your story and talk

7:44

about this, which ultimately ended becoming

7:46

the subject matter of season two. What

7:48

made you decide to reach out?

7:50

Yeah, so going back to the

7:52

whole betrayal trauma, you know, part

7:54

of Jen's story. Andrea's right, there's

7:57

some type of camaraderie that I think

7:59

anyone can phil that's gone through

8:01

any type of betrayal there. And initially

8:04

when I first listened to the

8:06

podcast, that's actually what I had

8:08

searched up was betrayal and just to

8:10

see what had come up, and the betrayal

8:12

podcast had come up. And so when

8:14

I listened to Jen, I felt

8:17

like she understood me, you know. So

8:19

for however long it had been, maybe a year

8:21

past what happened to

8:24

my family, for the first time, I didn't feel

8:26

like I was standing alone, you know, on an island

8:28

by myself. I was like, Jen is on this island

8:31

with me. So I sat on it for a minute,

8:33

you know, because someone in my position,

8:36

as a wife of somebody who's done

8:38

something so terrible and as a mother, you

8:40

know, to my children, I felt

8:42

really powerless, whether it was with the judicial

8:44

system or within my community, or

8:46

emotionally for my children or for my extended

8:49

family. And I just knew

8:51

that I needed to say something

8:53

I needed other people to know, and I

8:55

wanted to be a part of that. And so I

8:58

just emailed in. It was

9:00

like a maybe not even a paragraph,

9:02

it was more bullet points. As I told

9:04

him what my name was and I said, here's my story.

9:07

My husband was this, this, this, and this, and

9:09

he's also this. But I thought in my head,

9:11

I was like, Okay, well now I've done what my conscious

9:14

is telling me to do. So that's really the

9:16

reason why I went on

9:18

this journey. And I'm so grateful that they listened

9:20

and they heard me, because absolutely I

9:22

wasn't being heard.

9:24

Yeah, for those that have not yet had the chance

9:26

to hear the second season, do you want to

9:28

share a little bit about your story and again,

9:30

what led you to reach out there?

9:32

Yeah? Absolutely so. My husband

9:34

and I lived just a typical

9:37

suburban life. He was well

9:39

known in our community. He'd raised my

9:41

older two children. My oldest was

9:43

two and my son was five months old,

9:46

so he has always been their father. We

9:48

do have a child together. I mean, just

9:50

typical life, soccer mom, dance

9:52

mom, football mom. It was just very,

9:55

very typical. And while starting

9:57

a business, I just happened to come across

9:59

a of child sexual

10:01

abuse material in his iCloud account,

10:04

and season two really kind

10:06

of goes over that story. But it's

10:08

more of like a lift off for some

10:11

bigger topics that need to be talked

10:13

about, as far as you know, legislation

10:16

or sentencing guidelines or

10:18

just like you said, from a victim

10:21

or survivor's perspective, and how

10:23

the world treats us versus how

10:25

a lot of our programming and things

10:27

like that are geared towards our perpetrator

10:30

and where we're left kind of in the dust

10:32

to try to figure out what to do next,

10:34

and it's very isolating, very

10:36

very isolating, And so our season

10:39

two goes into that, and then also goes into

10:41

mental health as well and maybe why

10:43

I was able to stay

10:46

in relationships not just

10:48

with my husband, but maybe earlier

10:50

on and make the decisions that I had made. And

10:52

I think that's really where a

10:54

lot of our listeners were able to connect with

10:56

that as well. So it was fun to kind

10:58

of see the podcast take on a mind of its own

11:01

and explore some of these really important topics

11:03

that a lot of the listeners I

11:05

know because I've read some of the emails, which I'm

11:08

so grateful for, but they've really connected

11:10

to Yeah.

11:11

You mentioned those and thank you for sharing your

11:13

story there, and you mentioned the emails

11:15

Andrea, you received countless emails

11:18

after the first season of the trail

11:20

and really trying to decide, you know, how

11:22

do you process these what do you do with this? But

11:24

there was something that really connected you

11:27

with Ashley's story, and I'm

11:29

curious what was it that allowed you to

11:31

sort of connect so deeply to Ashley when

11:33

you saw her outreach.

11:35

I think that she was just radically

11:38

transparent and honest and

11:40

open. And we're never

11:42

in the business of convincing anyone to share

11:44

their story, and it just seemed like Ashley

11:46

was just so ready, yeah and listen,

11:49

and Ashley knows this. We considered

11:51

a lot of stories that people had shared with us,

11:54

and in this particular.

11:56

Case, we struggled with it.

11:58

I mean, the crime itself is about child sexual

12:00

abuse material, and I give a

12:02

lot of credit to you. I give a lot of credit

12:04

to Ali Perry, who is our

12:06

direct report with you guys. We've reached

12:08

out and said, hey, guys, this is what this topic

12:11

is. How do you guys feel about it?

12:13

Because the reality is this is

12:15

a topic that people are really afraid of. Yeah,

12:18

and people are really like, oh, I

12:20

don't know if I want to hear about this, this is too much,

12:23

and instead of backing off

12:25

of it, we all leaned in and you

12:27

and iHeart were so game

12:30

for it. And I just thought that was so

12:32

so cool. I think in terms of

12:34

Ashley, you know, she wrote to us saying, I

12:36

too, am a part of a club Noah wants to be

12:38

a part of. Yeah, and you

12:40

know, she felt so isolated, and

12:44

I think that she was ready to like

12:46

command her voice and it just

12:48

resonated on paper.

12:50

Yeah. You know, this story obviously

12:52

has now been heard, your story, Ashley,

12:54

by millions of people, and I'm curious

12:56

what that experience has been like, because

12:58

I'm sure that it took a lot of braver read it

13:01

to reach out and say I feel like

13:03

I should tell this story. I feel like I'm ready

13:05

to tell the story. I'm sure it was also

13:07

in some respects, I'm assuming terrifying

13:10

to do that at some level as well. But what

13:12

has the experience been like sharing your story

13:14

with the world. Are you glad that you made the decision

13:17

to it? Sounds like you are, but just curious what

13:19

that experience has been like.

13:20

Yeah, It's interesting because even

13:22

when I go back to when I

13:25

reported my husband there wasn't even

13:27

a choice, like that's just what needed to be

13:29

done, and there wasn't a choice, And that's how

13:31

exactly how I feel about the podcast, Like I

13:33

understand that there's always a choice

13:35

or whatever, but I just felt like this

13:38

is what had to be done. And I

13:40

still feel that way. And so for

13:42

me, I knew when I opened this that

13:45

it was going to be something that I did for the

13:47

rest of my life, and not necessarily just

13:49

because I wanted to share my story, and you

13:51

know all that, I knew that my story was

13:53

more of like a lift off of more things

13:55

and bigger things and things that people read about

13:58

every day in the news but nobody really

14:00

wants to talk about. It's been really, really

14:02

relieving to see that

14:05

I've opened some lines of communication for

14:07

even just those around me. But

14:10

it's also interesting too, because it

14:12

is people hear the story through their headphones

14:14

or whatever, and then they do feel this connection

14:17

with my story, but it's still uncomfortable for some

14:19

people to ask me about it. And the

14:21

way that I see it is when this happened

14:23

to my family, it was in the media,

14:26

so our whole local community knew,

14:28

and I feel like a lot of

14:30

any type of pride or ego that I had was

14:33

brushed away. So sharing the worst

14:35

parts of anybody's life, and especially

14:37

with it being so traumatic, and not just for me,

14:40

but for my children, for my family,

14:42

and even for my husband. I knew that

14:44

there were going to be some people that would

14:47

rather just sweep it under the rug and just

14:49

move on with life and not talk about it. But that's

14:51

the reason why this type of behavior keeps

14:53

happening. Yeah, because nobody wants

14:55

to talk about it.

14:56

Yeah, we can pretend that these are

14:58

super fringe worries, but in reality

15:01

and varying levels, this is all

15:04

too common of a story. Right Again, that's

15:06

sort of these different kinds of levels.

15:08

And Andrea, before I've let you to go, I

15:10

would love to just hear from

15:13

you, you know, I guess to back up

15:15

a little bit. These these stories are of

15:17

course shocking and upsetting when you

15:19

hear them, but also interestingly

15:21

inspiring when you listen to them

15:23

as well. Like the strength of the

15:26

subject matter here and the strength of the

15:28

women of the survivors, and

15:30

where we go from here, I'm curious,

15:32

what is your hope for listeners and

15:34

listening to betrayal? What would you hope listeners

15:37

would get out of each season.

15:38

I think the biggest thing

15:41

is for people that come to this podcast, like

15:43

Ashley, that they don't feel alone.

15:46

That was the thing that Jen and I talked about

15:48

all the time when we first started making season

15:50

one, was if this just helps one person

15:52

feel less alone, then we did our

15:55

job.

15:55

And so I've watched two.

15:57

Women really grow

16:00

and wrestle with really complicated

16:03

emotional baggage and have

16:05

done a herculean evolution

16:08

within you know what. Ashley's

16:10

been able to overcome and really examine

16:13

personally. When I first met Jen, she was really

16:15

angry and has gotten to a

16:17

place of peace, like there is peace

16:20

on the other side of this. And so

16:22

I think people come to the show for different reasons,

16:25

and I think they'll find their own individual thing

16:27

that makes them realize why they're listening.

16:30

But I think really it's to help

16:32

people feel less alone and show you that

16:34

time does move on and you are capable

16:36

of growth, and you are stronger than you think, and

16:39

you are resilient, you know. To Ashley's

16:41

point, like she didn't even want anything out

16:43

in the papers, and now she's putting it out

16:45

in front of a million people. You

16:48

know, it's just having the ability to

16:50

reclaim what happened to you and

16:53

you know, stand in your powers a

16:55

really powerful thing.

16:56

Yeah, and you probably won't ever know just

16:58

how many people you've had a positive

17:00

impact on from hearing your story and

17:03

that connection that they feel to you. I'm

17:05

sure many of them will reach out and many

17:07

more, probably many more than that will

17:09

never reach out, but there still feel that

17:12

connection. So we're honored that we've

17:14

had the opportunity to work with both

17:16

of you on this and I know that, like

17:18

we said after the first season, we

17:20

hear from so many listeners and I

17:23

think we'll continue to work with the team

17:25

to tell these stories. But really appreciate

17:27

your spending some time with us today, and I hope that

17:29

everybody watching and listening if you've

17:32

not yet heard it Betrayal. Like

17:34

we said before, it's a difficult podcast

17:36

at times to listen to, and these are really

17:38

difficult stories but also inspiring

17:41

and really important, and I hope everybody will check

17:43

them out. But Andrea Ashley, thanks for spending

17:45

some time with us.

17:46

Thank you, Will, Yeah, thank you, Will.

17:48

I appreciate you and the whole iHeart team,

17:50

So thank you, Thank you.

17:51

Guys are amazing.

17:52

Thank you, Thanks everybody for spending some time

17:54

with us today. We'll see you again next week.

18:04

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18:07

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