Thank You, Howard. We Are Still Honoring the Gift You Gave Us From Your Deathbed

00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks. It is Wednesday, February the eleventh, and three years ago this month, Robach and I got a phone call from our friend Howard and the first thing he said upon calling was, how did I look to you the last time you saw me. We didn't really understand what he meant at the time, but he died seven days after that phone call, and today, February the eleventh is the three year anniversary of his death. And before he passed, he gave me and Robach an incredible gift that we will carry cheris, celebrate, and visit for the rest of our lives. And as we speak to you right now, we are in Puerto by Arta, Mexico, saying thank you and honoring our lady friend, and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes. We didn't say it outright that we were planning this trip to honor Howard Bragman, but I think subconsciously, in some way, we have planned this trip and we are here at the exact time that he placed us here, which also coincides with the anniversary of his death. Actually, this trip is a little heavier than I thought it was going.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: To be, you know, it's so interesting how life works. And I am someone who believes that there are no coincidences, that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And we had been talking about ever since we made this trip, and we'll get into what that trip was like and how we ended up here in the first place because of Howard, and why we're here now three years later. It wasn't some deliberate plan anniversary trip, and yet we found ourselves coming back and always being drawn back like emotionally. We've talked about this, but it just worked out that we ended up back here on the three year anniversary of Howard's death. And it's so fitting and it's so appropriate, and no, I don't think it was a coincidence.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: No, this is a look it sounds like vacation, part of our art to Mexico. But when we first came here in the first time, we of course we'd heard of it over the years, but neither one of us had visited before three years ago. And we were here because we were trying to get away. We were trying to get away, and Howard Bragman was somebody who took us under his wing and tried to help us in that moment. If some people might not remember road, but it was exactly three years ago this month that we were under some of the greatest scrutiny, and it was probably in our professional and personal lives, one of the most difficult, maybe even months or stretches of our life. It was as we were negotiating an exit out of ABC.

00:03:03
Speaker 2: For me, it's not a maybe, and I'm talking about dealing with breast cancer, divorce, divorces. February of twenty twenty three. January February of twenty twenty three with that was the hardest stretch of my life period. And look, we could have more tough stretches and things could get worse, but up until now, I can honestly say that was the toughest time of my life period.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: And the toughest time of our life is when Howard Bragman entered our life in a different way. A lot of people you might recognize that name, you might not. You might recognize the face even more so than you recognize the name. But Howard Bragman was known as a crisis manager and a celebrity publicist, and what he did was help a lot of celebrities out. He started originally as a publicist, but Robes he kind of made his mark as a crisis manager. But even more so than that, he helped a lot of celebrities and high profile people come out. Howard Bragman was gay, but he took not just this as a job, but as a cause, if you will, in hurting and help in helping high profile people come out.

00:04:16
Speaker 2: Ah, you know, it actually makes me emotional because he was obviously he made a living doing this, but he cared less about the money he made from it. And you just knew that this the moment you met him, and more about the impact he was having. And to that point, he reached out. He had my I don't know how he had my email or my number. You and I had both met with him in our careers as cable news anchors where he was actually representing other clients who we were either interviewing or covering, but he reached out to us specifically when everything was going down.

00:04:54
Speaker 1: And this is a guy And to that point, Robes, yes, a lot of people are familiar with him. If you've been the business a decade plus or more, starting from the eighties to now, you worked with him. He was called upon a lot with any celebrity scandal. He was the guy who said this is what I would do, and this is what he was. He's been out there a lot. But what Howard Bragman meant to us in particular, Yes, Robes, we had come across him and dealt with him and talked to him and interviewed him over the years. But then things changed. Things changed, and it started before any headlines or tabloid headlines came out about us because the weekend. You might know the dates in particular, but we went to a wedding the night before the New York City Marathon in November of twenty twenty two. We were running the marathon and we were going to this big wedding, special wedding, expensive wedding, high profile wedding, celebrity wedding. You could even argue, Robes, but he I was speaking at that wedding. He happened to be seated right behind us and just said, Hi, Now, this is before anything went down, Yes, and this is where we got to reconnect.

00:06:08
Speaker 3: You and I were actually together at that point.

00:06:11
Speaker 1: Nobody knew it, but yes.

00:06:13
Speaker 3: Nobody knew it.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: But we attended that wedding together and we weren't. Like we have said this plenty of times, we weren't hiding necessarily that we were dating, but we weren't out that we were dating because we weren't. We had not publicly acknowledged that we were divorcing our exes, but we were in the middle of divorce attorneys and anyone who's gone through that process knows how long it takes and knows how complicated it can be. But we kind of felt I can speak for myself, I felt a layer of confidence in attending a wedding with you without being overtly yes, this is my person who I'm dating. But I felt like it wasn't wrong because I knew that we were in the middle of our divorces, so we kind of confidently and we were co anchors, and we were it wouldn't be unusual that we would be together. But we attended that wedding together proudly, almost as friends, but not concerned what anybody would think.

00:07:11
Speaker 1: I'm laughing because obviously, two people who go to a close friend's wedding and neither one of those two people show it with their respective spouses, He's going to raise an eyebrow. Again, we haven't we hadn't announced, but we were both in we were divorced proceedings for the past several months, four plus even at that point. Okay, fine, but we're at this wedding. How we're sitting behind us. We got to catch up, just said hello, how you doing, what's been going on? I think we only chatted with him during the wedding, like, we didn't hang out afterwards. It was just he was almost tapping us on the show. We were almost rude guests. The wedding.

00:07:43
Speaker 2: Well, we got out of there quickly because we had to run the marathon in the morning, so we couldn't stay and party. As beautiful as this wedding was and as incredible as the venue was, if there was ever a wedding, I wished we could have stayed out, stayed at and stayed out to party, it would have been this wedding. But we went back because we had to get up at four o'clock in the morning to run a marathon.

00:08:02
Speaker 3: So it was brief the time we have with Howard in.

00:08:06
Speaker 1: That moment, so we just reconnected. Good to see you, nice to say hi. So three weeks after that, shit hits the fan for us. Everything goes crazy tabloids of reporting that we're in a relationship, and a lot of people know how that story goes. But Robes he was, I say, one of the first. I'm saying he might have been the we heard from everybody. He was one of the first five people we heard from after she hit the.

00:08:30
Speaker 2: Fan, And his point was to us when he reached out, I don't want anything from you.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: I don't want any money.

00:08:37
Speaker 2: I don't want you to sign up with me or give me some sort of like you know, a lot of these crisis PR folks are like, hey, give me a retainer, much like a lawyer. This is how it works in a certain circle. When you're in a certain place and you've got hell to pay and you've got PR to deal with, they you do have people kind of swoop in and say, I'll take care of you, and here's how much it's gonna cost you. He swooped in and said, I don't want a penny from you. Don't even think about sending me any amount of money. I love both of you. I saw the two of you at that wedding, and I saw love. And he was almost excited that he saw something. A few weeks earlier and it was confirmed. Oh my god, those two people are in love with each other, and two people who I knew completely separate from one another, who I liked individually, and now I'm seeing these two and this is a love story and I want to help them.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: We didn't have to make a mention of money or how much it's gonna cost, what we need to sign up for. He cleared that from the jump, and from that moment, robe from the moment, all this, I keep saying she had hit the fan. I swear we heard from him, damn near every day.

00:09:53
Speaker 2: Every day, every day, and he said to us, I will not take one penny from you. And the person who said I will not take one penny from you, and he was the only person who said that to us, is the only person who called us every day and said, how are you doing?

00:10:05
Speaker 3: What can I do?

00:10:06
Speaker 2: And he actually had really phenomenal advice that we weren't getting from people who we were paying, and that was exceptional.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: So we continue with the story here as it goes November, early November, the wedding, late November, tabloids. Now we move into January. Let's move into February. But late January is when I think it was fully reported on, but people knew we were negotiator and nextit there was a big mediation going on. Robes. You were in one spot in La. I was in a different spot in LA. Lawyers were in a different spot. Mediator was in a different spot. This was all done via zoom. But we went to La and this was a big, big deal for us to negotiate our way out of Disney.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: It was as dramatic as a guess.

00:10:54
Speaker 2: So if there were cameras on us with our respective teams. We were again in La together but in different places, communicating with each other, and it was as stressful as it gets.

00:11:05
Speaker 1: So we were staying there and we were staying night at a hotel, not an Airbnb. Couldn't but someone let us borrow a bungalow essentially, and so we were hiding out in a bungalow for several days during this mediation. The last day we finally finished the mediation, word had gotten out. Somebody figured out where we are. We were exposed, if you will. Howard calls us up and we had another night or two I think might have been two nights to be in La. He said, come to me, Howard, said, you all just come to me, come to my house and robes. It sounded like a great idea at the time.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: It was an escape, it was a respite, and I was able. This is how crazy it was. We were being followed. We had to go in two different vehicles. So I jumped in an Uber and you took the vehicle we had rented. I was able to get away undetected and get to Howard's place.

00:11:59
Speaker 3: You were and chased.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting at Howard's place with Howard and he is on the phone with the LA Police trying to help you get a high speed chase to end, because you were being tailed by paparazzi and it was getting dangerous and you were getting worried and scared.

00:12:19
Speaker 1: So you were having an experience with Howard. You made it there. Yes, we had to figure out how to get out of the bungalow I had. You know what the plan was. I was supposed to get the rental car and come back and pick you up.

00:12:30
Speaker 3: That's what it was.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: I left in an Uber and I saw someone tailing that uber. You were right, and I said, Babe, I can't come back and get you. So I go to this rental car place, and I'm looking out the front window of the rental car place and I see the photographer parked over on the other side of the street. Thank god, I wish I knew this guy's name. At this rental car place, he saw it ropes. I have the picture. He took me to the back, gave me a holding area, let me put my bags, had the door open, and pull the rental car up to this back exit emergency exit to help me out. This is what we were going through. So I'm trying to make my way to you, driving around LA in an oversized white SUV. I believe it's an expedition. I don't know where I'm going, and you and Howard are on the phone trying to get me to you. This guy is literally chasing me on Hollywood Boulevard. Howard is on the phone with me saying, TJ, do this make a left here, go right here. He sends me to the Sheriff's department to park. He's on the phone with the Sheriff's department telling them, Hey, I got a guy. This is the problem. The Sheriff's department gives me an escort out of Hollywood. Escorts me out of their jurisdiction. Say hey, this is much we can do, but I think you're okay, Robes. He and I don't know if we ever told Harvey Levin this, but Harvey was a part of this. From TMC. He was I am being tailed and Howard, our friend is like, what the fuck this? This is awful. He said, let me call TMZ. He calls Harvey Levin. Howard calls me back, says he just got off with Harvey. He said, yeah, we don't do that. He said, yeah, he said. Harvey was dismissive. Yeah, we don't roll like that. Of course, we're not chasing T. J. Holmes around LA. So Howard, in this moment, we just went through this awful thing and now we're just trying to get out of LA undetected. He literally Robes, he is keeping you company and guiding me out of Los Angeles avoiding paparazzi. We're trying to explain here what this guy. We haven't even gotten to the good stuff, but this is what this guy was and what he meant to us and why he's special to us.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: Right now, Look, when you feel like the world is against you and you have this person who's like I got you, and he was like a like a father figure who stepped in and just took care of you when you couldn't trust anyone. He was the one person wek addressed and he brought you back when he brought you to his place, and the by the way, when he put his own place on the map, he didn't want anyone to know where he lived, and he was able to get you to his place in a way where he felt safe, or he wasn't bringing that to his home, but he risked it anyway and brought you in.

00:15:21
Speaker 3: And we were.

00:15:21
Speaker 2: In this like it felt like a It was just a safe space. And we didn't feel safe anywhere. There was nowhere we were safe. We weren't safe in New York, we weren't safe in Miami. We weren't safe anywhere. We had not found a place where we were safe except for Howard Bragman's home in La suddenly became our first safe place.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: And you say it that way, we're all like the amount of relief I felt when I pulled into Tower Bragman's garage and I see you two step out with Mimosa's in hand for me, and it was so tight. I remember there's a huge car. I struggled to get in there. I thought I was going to I remember this so well, and you two stepped. I had a mimosa in hand, and this is how we started our visit with Howard Bragman. That visit led to an incredible gift that we are at this moment enjoying in Mexico three years to the day of Howard Bragman's death. Stay here, we'll explain the visit and the gift. We continue here on Amy and TJ on the three year anniversary the death of our friend Howard Bragman. We left off Ropes talking about that visit. Once we got parked. Once I parked, at least got there, mimosa in hand. We went out back one or two dogs. It was one dog, yeah right, I just remember one dog. But we sat out back and Rob. I can't remember how many hours this visit was. That in that stretch of time, months of just under at least what it felt like assault, that was the most comfortable and safest I felt in those months is being at that home in that backyard, eating his food, drinking his wine, eating his bagels. That was the safest I feel shit.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: We don't even eat, yes, but we ate it with him, and I get emotional because I actually feel like, even when sometimes things have gotten hard for us, I think about his belief in us and what he invested in us, And actually there were moments when we've had struggles and I'm like, Howard is looking down on us right now, and he is rooting for us in every way.

00:17:45
Speaker 4: He was that person to so many people who felt overwhelmed by the pressures of fame and whatever scandal they may have found themselves in. I'm not taking any responsibility away from somebody, but for someone like Howard Bragman to take a position where he defends people who other people consider indefensible. He goes to bat for people who are being canceled, or for people who everyone wants to turn their back on when it gets icky or uncomfortable or not okay to support. He was the guy who stood up for those people, and to have him on your side was to feel like you were gonna be okay.

00:18:23
Speaker 1: We said plenty of times after his passing, Man, I wish we had Howard when things came out, like, Wow, this would go so differently. If we could call Howard and ask for some advice. We sat and we visited, and we stayed and run robes that we're not big into regret, but it was one thing he wanted us to stay with him that night. I'm so glad you mentioned that guys stay here at my place tonight. We didn't want to impose. We wanted to go and like we're getting out of your hair. We got all this heat, Howard. No no, no, no, no. The robe. That is one thing we're not in big into regrets a right, but god damn, I wish we'd just stayed that night.

00:19:01
Speaker 2: I am so happy you just said that because I so wanted to make sure that we talked about this today, because I think this is a lesson in life for everybody, this thing that.

00:19:12
Speaker 3: A lot of us have, and it's comes from such a good place.

00:19:14
Speaker 2: You don't want to impose, you don't want to overstay, You're welcome, you don't want to.

00:19:20
Speaker 3: Push your luck, so to speak.

00:19:22
Speaker 2: And you're right, he so wanted us to stay because he saw that we were literally in retreat.

00:19:28
Speaker 3: We actually didn't know where we were going. We found some random place.

00:19:34
Speaker 2: We got in a car and started driving and we started looking up where can we stay where no one will know where we're going to be. I know it sounds crazy because we're not necessarily we've never been A listers, B listers, C listers, maybe F listers, But all of a sudden, when you're like notoriously famous, you feel like you can't check into a hotel because someone's gonna call TMZ. So not TMZ, but someone's gonna call someone some paparazzi on you. So we had to make it up as we've been along, and it would have felt great to stay with Howard, but we didn't want to impose, and he begged us to stay, and we were like, that's so much, that's too much to ask, and so we just took off and found a place in Long Beach, I believe, some random place along the highway. We stayed because we just didn't want to impose. We had no idea that six days later he would be in the hospital so Howard and he would pass. So Howard, from after we left him, we stayed in touch. We were talking all day that day and this was the funny thing about it. Ro We sent him a picture of us from the hotel, and this great picture and we have a great picture of us with Howard before we left. The last picture we have put one that's a gorgeous, gorgeous picture.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: But ro we sent him a picture this was just funny. He said, Wow, I can sell this and get ten grand for it. And we laughed and he said, no, no, y'all don't understand. I am in this business, and I am in circles, and I understand that a good pick of you all now is going for that. Now, that is that's paltry compared to a bunch of stuff. But he was. He just made the joke that you got I could take this picture. We should post that one too, the one that we sent him. So we leave finally California, Rose we get this was the end of January. We get back to New York. So it's February third, fourth, we're at the house and we get a phone call. This is the phone call we were talking about. At the top of the hour. He calls. I answered the phone. He doesn't say hello. I just say hello. He doesn't say hi, how you doing, or say hey, it's Howard. He led with this, how did I look the last time you saw me? And the last time we had seen him? Was less than a week, because we've.

00:21:47
Speaker 3: Been a matter of days, yeah, five six days.

00:21:50
Speaker 1: And I asked, I kind of followed up because I didn't I really didn't understand what he was asking. He was asking that because Robes, as we know now, he said he had gone to the doctor. They had found something. There was some irritation in his mouth or something. He went in for something totally random, and they found something else. That's something else, Rolls was leukemia.

00:22:08
Speaker 2: Acute leukemia. And he had told us when we were sitting in that sun on the back porch of his place, telling us he had a minor issue that it was frustrating him.

00:22:20
Speaker 3: He didn't know what it.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: Was, but he was gonna figure it out, but it seemed fairly.

00:22:25
Speaker 3: Insignificant, truly insignificant.

00:22:28
Speaker 2: And it was when we were sitting with him and he was talking about this why Mexico was so important to him that he prioritized getting away, that he had this place he went to every year. He was talking about Portavarta, but he was also talking about this annoyance he had this seemingly innocuous health issue he had that he was going to get checked out.

00:22:46
Speaker 3: That honestly, I didn't give a second thought to.

00:22:50
Speaker 1: He did either. Obviously did not either. But it was a dental issue, like a too of his dental gums or something. It was his gums and goes to the doctor and he called. I think he was in the hospital in that phone call. He was so we're obviously devastated at this point and didn't think at all it was that serious. I don't think he did it either at the moment. But prior to that, when we were at his house, he had invited us to Porto Varta, Mexico, where he rents a house every year, has several bedrooms and just invites people to come in and out. Hey if you can make it, and he coordinates it, Hey, this couple can come at this time, you can come for this week, you can go. And it's something he did. We didn't know that. But he invites us, and you know what, we say, what the hell?

00:23:36
Speaker 2: And you're not one to take up, take anyone up on an invitation like that where we don't know who's going to be at the house, how many people are going to be there.

00:23:43
Speaker 3: And you were just like you were.

00:23:45
Speaker 1: So give me out of this, give me out of the us.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Yes, but I appreciated how much you connected with Howard.

00:23:51
Speaker 3: No, unless someone knows you, TJ. I'm somebody who'll be like, sure, I'll do it. I would probably say yes.

00:23:57
Speaker 2: You are very discerning, and for you to be like, we'll go, I was like, wow, TJ's saying yes to this.

00:24:04
Speaker 3: You were like, okay, I'm listening.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: So we had committed prior to this phone call in which he was telling us they had found this leukemia. But he was letting us know that he probably wasn't going to be able to make the trip. So he's the one that invited us.

00:24:19
Speaker 3: We're going to cancel.

00:24:21
Speaker 1: We immediately were going to cancel.

00:24:23
Speaker 3: Yes, Howard.

00:24:24
Speaker 1: Oh like on the phone, Howard, it's no big deal, dude, don't worry about it. All good. Take care of your health. It's fine. And this is where the gift comes in ropes. In that phone call, he begged us to go.

00:24:39
Speaker 2: He said to you, I remember exactly where you were standing, and I saw your face and I saw you you realized that this was actually very serious. He said, if you can do me this favor, all I ask of you, no matter what happens. Because he knew more than and he was letting on. At that point, he said, give me this gift. I need you to tell me right now that you are going to go to Mexico.

00:25:09
Speaker 3: No matter what. Promise me right now.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: He on the phone asked you to promise him that, no matter what, that we would go to Mexico.

00:25:18
Speaker 3: That that was the biggest gift that we could give him.

00:25:20
Speaker 2: As he was sitting in that hospital bed, Promise me you will go anyway.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: He said it that way, he said, I'm sitting up here. I can't do anything for anybody right now, but I can do this for you. Please allow me this, Please allow me. He begged and pleaded to the point, Robes, that we felt ruled, rude and like assholes. If we didn't, it felt so wrong to go be having a good time while a friend of ours was in the hospital. That's where we were at the moment. But he insisted and he begged. And here was the thing, folks, He followed up from the hospital bed, and you, Robes, we were sitting here looking at a short time ago. We still have emails from this guy. He was planning limos for us on what eventually ended up being his deathbed. He was planning cars and pickups from the airport. While he was on his deathbed, I had the emails, and I'm looking at him like, are you kidding me? And so I don't think I've looked at him in three years, be honest with you, Robes. But he insisted, and this was on February fourth, I think it was. Yeah, he died on February the eleventh, and we promised him already, we promised we go after that, Robes. We were hesitating after he told us he was sick. After he passed, there was almost no way we couldn't go.

00:26:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, we decided, like we started like putting ourselves in his position, because the whole reason why he offered us this place was he saw how much we were being hunted, right, and so many people have been in opposition, and that was his lane.

00:26:58
Speaker 2: He knew how to take care of people who were in our position, and he said, let me give this to you. Let me give you a space and a place where you actually can just be safe to be you, and you'll be able to actually just let your guard down for a second.

00:27:13
Speaker 3: Let me bring you to Port of Iarda. So it's so surreal.

00:27:19
Speaker 2: To know that in a matter of days, he tells us this, and on what would become his deathbed, asks us to promise him that will go no matter what, and then he dies and we get on a plane three days later, on February fourteenth, on Valentine's Day, to head to Porta Iarda, to a trip that we thought we would be taking with him to get to know him better, to get to celebrate life with him, and suddenly now we're going there and he's gone. It was it was because we had known him for years, but we had only reconnected with him in the last few months.

00:27:59
Speaker 3: And to think that all of this was going on in our lives.

00:28:02
Speaker 2: What he knew how to do best to take care of people who were in our positions, For us to reconnect in that way, and then for him to suddenly be taken from us, it was I had to think that there was some larger lesson and it was to learn, like what did he do? How did he live his life? He was a giver, He was not a taker. He was a giver, and we needed we needed someone like that in our lives. And now it's like our turn to return that. Like you see how he lived his life, and you think that's how I want to live in my life. So to be back here now, I think about all of those lessons and what a gift he was to the world and what our responsibility is now to pay it forward.

00:28:46
Speaker 1: Isn't crazy how he was so supportive of us and we needed really his skill set, right, He never implemented it. He never gave us a strategy that was implemented in public. He never worked for us behind the scenes, talking to reporters or anything like that. And yet he still provided us now something that's going to be more valuable for the rest of our lives. Our daughters have been here, our daughters love it down here. We are back here again in this area port of our Arta Salulita. Absolutely we are looking at property we would not I don't know if we ever would have planned a trip here. But this place is special to us because it's wonderful. Yes, sure, but he put this on our radar, on our map and at a time robes when it was our we were here, and we ended up on that trip being hounded and harassed, and it hurt and it sucked, and we were followed.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: In the whole. We had a drone following us on the beach and port of iarta saying horrible things about.

00:29:46
Speaker 1: Despite all that. It's meaningful and nobody understands fully necessarily. But he is someone that folks, we have mentioned before and talked about before. But we are here in this place that he introduced us to on the anniversary of his death, we should mention Ropes his late husband, Michael. They what they married.

00:30:09
Speaker 3: He married on his death.

00:30:11
Speaker 1: It was Oh, that's right, Jesus Christ. I remember they had been dating. Oh yeah, that's another thing we went to was his funeral. His husband's musician. We went to his house. He was blasting his husband's music and he was so proud. Oh, he was so proud.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: They were engaged.

00:30:27
Speaker 2: They weren't married yet when we actually spoke with him, and I like to hear him, and I think that's part of what drew him to us.

00:30:33
Speaker 3: He saw our love, he saw our connection.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: And you know, when you're with somebody and you just see something that's real and you can read about it and you can hear all the shit that people say about it, but when you meet someone and I think I think that was our big connection. He saw our love and he connected it to his love, and he he was Yes, he was blasting his fiance's music. He's so proud they married on his death bed.

00:31:01
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't.

00:31:03
Speaker 6: Like I think we move on with our lives and that the world is crazy and there's so many stories, but like to be reconnected with him on this day, in this place, it's very special, and I think these are the moments like life.

00:31:17
Speaker 3: Life is hard and it's messy, but.

00:31:18
Speaker 7: Like when you meet real, genuine people who are here to serve, and like it's just an honor to have known them, and the way you honor their memory is to live better and to be kinder and to remember what matters.

00:31:32
Speaker 2: It's not any of the things sometimes we focus on. It's our relationships and it's how we treat each other. And he lived that and we experienced his love and it met and mattered.

00:31:46
Speaker 1: We didn't. As we wrap up here at the last point of this was Robes. I think a lot of people didn't know, didn't understand, but it was once again became some kind of a tabloid fodder that we attended his funeral, and folks don't know at that time it was in early March. I think it was we were still under a microscope to the point we couldn't fly into Los Angeles International Airport la IS, where his funeral was happening, flew into San Diego, drove up the two hours to la to his funeral in a white Chevy Camaro that we had rented. He looked ridiculous, But we go to this funeral, and of course Tabloid's right, and we attended and you couldn't be leave by. But folks don't realize that even then, it was worth it to us to get on the plane, fly across the country and do whatever we had to do to be there to honor him on that day. That is why we were there. This story that folks don't know is the backstory of why we would have done anything to be anywhere we needed to be to honor him on that day.

00:32:48
Speaker 3: Agreed.

00:32:49
Speaker 2: And the cool thing is, I do think there is Like I've made this very clear, I'm a big believer in kismet, and we planned this vacation around a lot of different things. But neither one of us realized before we made this trip that we were going to be here on the anniversary of his death. Until we got here and we looked back and we thought, oh my god, we are actually here on the anniversary of his death.

00:33:19
Speaker 3: How fucking cool is that.

00:33:21
Speaker 2: We didn't plan it, but it happened, and it's worth noting and it's worth remembering.

00:33:27
Speaker 3: And my God, Howard Bragman, God bless you. We love you.

00:33:31
Speaker 2: We think of you often, but we're really thinking of you right now here today. And I know so many of you listening have that person in your life, whether it's your father or your brother, someone you met along the way, a teacher, whoever the mentor was. But these are the moments when you honor those who left something so significant that you lived differently because of them. I am in awe that we got that time with him. I wish there was more time, but we'll take what we got and we'll remember him in the place he loved the most.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: And we will always smile robes. And I will leave this on a happy, a funny, a hilarious note, because we got thrown off guard. He invited us here, yes to port of our art and the house he rents, and apparently he rents it the same one every year.

00:34:18
Speaker 3: I blue believed he did yes for years and years and years.

00:34:20
Speaker 1: And it sits on the end of this long stretch of the main beach there in Port of our Arta, and it sits there and it has this house a private entrance and exit to the beach. So we walked out of the house and we're right there on the beach. This is our first dunning. We just unpacked. This is unbelievable. We walk one hundred feet. Oh wow, that's a really tight bathing suit for a man to be wearing. We walk a little further. Wow, another tight bathing suit. And is that baby oil he's wearing? And we keep going and going, and it continues and continues, and it seems like it doesn't stop. Seeing very glistening men in the same speedout because robes. Unbeknownst to us, we had just set foot onto gay Beach.

00:35:08
Speaker 2: So this is true. Howard Bragman. Obviously we mentioned his husband, Michael, Obviously he's gay. All in fact, all the other couples who he had invited to this.

00:35:19
Speaker 3: House were gay. We were the only heterosexual couple. And by the way, that was awesome too.

00:35:23
Speaker 2: His friends, his best friends who would come year after year after year to the same place, showed up. Because we felt really conflicted, We're like, is this wrong of us to be going anyway. We know we promised him, but is this wrong? And all his friends were there, and we got to meet Howard's friends, and we got to meet some of the coolest people ever.

00:35:40
Speaker 3: And yes we were the only heterosexuals.

00:35:41
Speaker 2: But when we walked out and we see that we are surrounded by gay men. I actually pulled up the Google Maps and it said gay Beach. I'm like, babe, we're actually on a beach called gay beach.

00:35:55
Speaker 1: Just call that. That was a big resort there that caters to gay couples all do dudes? You all, I'm talking about as far as the I could see. Think about whatever resort you've ever been to. You see the lines and the lines and the lines of the beach chairs with the umbrellas.

00:36:10
Speaker 3: There wasn't a woman in sight, all men a woman in.

00:36:13
Speaker 1: Sight, and you know it was there were no board shorts inside either.

00:36:16
Speaker 3: There were no boxer shorts, there were no no baby pidos. And you know what you looked at.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: We looked at each other and we're like, this is perfect, amazing, this is amazing. He didn't mention all word. By the way, where I'm taking you, guys, it's called gay beach. You cool with that the cool thing is he knew we would be And I love that good point even more good point he didn't even need to tell us.

00:36:39
Speaker 1: Good point. But I'm not sure how much of this we have not said publicly. I think we've mentioned how wearred before. But this is to be in this place and to be here on this day begged for us to hop on the microphone and lets you all know about somebody that's very special to us on this day and to say, rest in peace, Howard. We love you. We're still thinking about you and we will for the rest of our lives. And with this gift that you have given to us, and with that, folks, we always appreciate you spending some time with us. I am T. J. Holmes On behalf of my dear Amyl robach In Porta Yodka Mehicol