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Obsessed: The Podcast

His Affair Made Her a New York Times Bestseller

Obsessed: The Podcast

The Daily Beast

Tv & Film

4.5 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Obsessed, Kevin Fallon is joined by Joanna Coles to dissect the much-talked-about Melania Trump documentary—why it feels more like a glossy ad than a revealing film, what it accidentally exposes about power, marriage, and image, and why its “box office win” doesn’t quite add up. Then Joanna sits down with New York Times bestselling author Belle Burden to discuss her devastating and surprising divorce, the voicemail that changed her life overnight, and how betrayal, financial reckoning, and isolation during Covid ultimately led her to write a memoir that has resonated with thousands of women. It’s an episode about image versus reality, the stories women are told to keep quiet, and what happens when you finally tell the truth. Follow Kevin Fallon on Instagram @kpfallon Follow Matt Wilstein on Instagram @mattjwilstein New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; early drops on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to another episode of Obsessed the Podcast.

0:06.5

I'm Kevin Fallon, your entertainment guide through all the TV shows, movies, and pop culture

0:12.4

news that we think is unmissable.

0:14.7

And today we have a very special treat.

0:17.4

The icon, the legend, the Daily Beast podcast Maven, Joanna Coles, is doing our big interview

0:24.7

today. She's interviewing the author, Bell Burden, whose book, Stranger, is burning up the

0:29.5

bestseller list. It's all everyone is talking about. It's about her surprise divorce,

0:33.2

and she's going to get into all of that. But first, I have a bone to pick with Joanna because as part of my job here at The Daily Beast,

0:42.3

I was forced to watch the Malania documentary.

0:45.9

Joanna, please justify this for me.

0:49.4

I'm the only person, I think, that quite enjoyed the Malani.

0:53.0

Really?

0:53.6

Yeah, why did you hate it? I mean,

0:55.5

I understand why you didn't like it. But let's get into it a bit. Well, my first thing,

1:01.9

it's like not a sexy headline. It was boring. It was just a really, to me, boring documentary.

1:08.1

It reminded me of like when you're taking a flight and they do those like pre-flight

1:12.4

videos where it's like here at United Airlines, what we care about is family and synergy and

1:16.8

travel and adventure. It was like all of that kind of like business propaganda, but for the

1:22.3

office of the first lady in a way that was not illuminating. I didn't learn anything new about her.

1:44.7

It was not exciting or dramatic, even though she was filming the lead-up to the inauguration. I just, like, wanted there to be something redeeming or, like, remotely watchable about it, and I didn't find that. Oh, I did learn quite a lot about that. Really? Yeah, it's possible that you knew more about how than I did going into it.

1:47.5

But I learned quite a lot.

1:55.1

First of all, that I thought she was signaling very strongly that she wants us to know she does not sleep with Donald Trump.

...

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