Kathryn Butler is a professional makeup artist who spent years behind the scenes glamming celebrities, traveling with JWOWW, and working award shows and TV before reinventing herself as a mom of two, a business owner, and the founder of the Paradise lip gloss line. Leslie pulls her out from behind the chair and into the talent seat to talk about what she's learned on set, the professionalism that separates a real BFD from a D-lister, and her years-long journey growing up inside Leslie's ecosystem.

In this episode:

Why the talent who's truly a BFD never leads with ego, and how the ones who do give themselves away

The unfiltered do's and don'ts of being on set (including what NOT to do while the cameras are rolling)

Years in JWOWW's makeup chair: friendship vs. professionalism, and knowing the difference

Kathryn's reinvention from celebrity MUA to doula to grounded mom who's allowed to love both makeup and motherhood

Leaving the all-or-nothing extremes (and the crunchy-mom rabbit hole) for nuance and autonomy

How motherhood checked her ego and made her better at the work

Her arc through Leslie's world: the first event, Brunch with Babes, Summer's Point, Nashville, Headliners Week

Building the Paradise lip gloss line, and why "Bombshell" is the bestseller that works on every skin tone

Connect with Kathryn Butler:💄 GlambyKathrynXO (Instagram) — best way to book or buy is a DM🏖️

Paradise — @welcometoparadisexo on Instagram

Connect with The BFD Show:

📺 Watch the network: watchbfdtv.com

📩 [email protected]

Carly Melchert is the founder of The Restored Soul, a certified keynote speaker, and one of the original BFDs. She and Leslie connected online during the pandemic, back when Carly was running a nonprofit and hiding every gift she had out of fear it would cost the organization donations. In this episode Carly traces her arc from hidden to headliner: trusting her intuition at every fork, leaving a stable job to bet on herself, and learning the hard way that finding your voice on stage is never a straight line.

In this episode:

• The "accidental" Instagram poll vote that started Carly's whole transformation
• Going from yoga to tarot to Reiki and sound healing, and learning to talk about her gifts out loud
• Why she left a good, rewarding, stable job, and how she helped the people around her feel safe about it
• The keynote that fell apart because the trauma wasn't as healed as she thought
• Her husband's gut-check: "if you're selling something, I'm not buying it, you don't seem safe"
• Doing the deep work in a safe container BEFORE the stage, not on it
• Owning what you share and what stays yours when life keeps happening mid-journey
• The open question of where her voice goes next: podcast, stage, sound baths, group Reiki
• The eagle in her yard, and the unapologetically real version of herself she shows online

Connect with Carly Melchert:

🔮 The Restored Soul

Connect with The BFD Show:

🎓 Apply to be a guest / find your stage: bfdshow.com

📺 Watch the network: watchbfdtv.com

📩 [email protected]

Famous is a frequency™.

Anita Sparks is a clinical therapist and the founder of the Beautiful Life Institute, and she built it to answer a question her clients kept asking after the deep trauma work was done: okay, but where do I actually make a friend? In this episode we get into why grown women are starved for real connection, how friendships shift as you grow (and how to gently guide the wrong ones off the boat), the toxic independence so many high-achieving women are quietly drowning in, and Anita's disarmingly simple roadmap back to self-love that starts with food, water, sleep, and yes, a houseplant.

In this episode:

• Why the craft is never the craft, and how the wreath/vision board/dream catcher is really just the excuse to build sisterhood
• The friend breakups nobody warns you about when your career and visibility grow
• Toxic independence: why "I can do it all myself" looks like success and feels like burnout
• Why you can't step off the ladder without everyone assuming you're having a breakdown
• Self-love as a real health practice (mental, physical, spiritual), not a branding aesthetic
• The houseplant story that teaches burnt-out women how to take care of themselves
• Building a morning routine that fits YOU instead of the one everyone online is selling

Connect with Anita Sparks:

🌿 Beautiful Life Institute — beautifullifeinstitute.net (workshops in South Jersey, plus virtual & in-person VIP days)

Connect with The BFD Show:

🎓 Apply to be a guest / find your stage: 📩 [email protected]

📺 Watch the network: watchbfdtv.com

📩 [email protected]

• Famous is a frequency™.

Holly Starr Allen is the woman I call when my human is doing the absolute most in the green room. I'll text her like, "Holly, I hope your phone is on you because I am having a MOMENT," and she'll tell me exactly what's happening in my timeline. That's the kind of energy worker she is, and honestly "energy worker" doesn't even cover it, which is why she had to trademark her own modality (TruSolHeart™ healing) because people kept saying, "wait, what was THAT?"

In this one we get into the architecture of becoming a BFD, and I mean that literally. Holly's whole thing is the foundation. You want to build the Empire State Building? Then you cannot pour a foundation the size of a dime and wonder why you keep hitting a vibrational ceiling. So we talk about why you say you want the stages and the billboards and the magazine covers, and then the invitation actually shows up and suddenly you're like, "not yet, I don't know," and you sabotage the whole thing without understanding why.

We also get into the difference between being seen and being witnessed (those are not the same, and once Holly explains it you can't unsee it), why vulnerability and boundaries live together instead of canceling each other out, and the thing that wrecked me a little: we are human beings, not human doings, and most of us cannot sit still for 15 seconds before we go chasing the next high. New launch, new goal, new relationship, anything to avoid just BEING.

And yes, we get personal. My second rock bottom during the pandemic, the puddle-on-the-floor months, and why it took my dog dying to finally let me process all of it. Holly explains that one in a way that I'm still thinking about.

This is the woman who helped me build the Everyday Celebrity brand. Power versus force. The process you cannot skip. Welcome to episode two.

Famous is a frequency™. Tune in.

• 📺 Watch the network: www.watchbfdtv.com
• 📩 [email protected]
• Work with Holly: www.hollystarrallen.com

Callie Greenberg made up her mind to work with me in less than 24 minutes. That's the kind of woman she is. She moves on energy, she moves fast, and she does not wait for permission, which is exactly why her story hits the way it does.

For 24 years Callie told doctors she was in pain and got handed birth control and a shrug. By the time someone finally listened, her endometriosis was stage four going on five, and the window to have biological children had already closed. She had a total hysterectomy at 39. Two years after a diagnosis nobody would give her for two decades.

But this episode isn't a sad story, and Callie isn't a victim. She took the rage of being dismissed and built something with it. She's the host of the Endo Warriors podcast, a fierce medical advocate who teaches women how to walk into a doctor's office prepared, recorded, and impossible to ignore (record every appointment, get the "nothing's wrong" in writing, advocate like your life depends on it, because it does). And she's a certified keynote speaker through my Speaker School who, in rehearsal, picked up the microphone, heard her own voice for the first time, and broke down. Because her whole life she'd been told she was too loud. Too much. Bring it down.

She wasn't screaming. She was captivating.

This is what happens when someone who's spent a lifetime being silenced finally gets a stage built for her. Welcome to the premiere of The BFD Show.

Famous is a frequency™. Tune in.

• 🎙️ Callie Greenberg — Endo Warriors podcast, now The Girls Room After Dark | @callie_greenberg
• 📺 Watch the network: www.watchbfdtv.com
• 📩 [email protected]

Learn More:

• CallieGreenberg.com
• Leslie Jespersen Speaker School

Welcome to BFD with Leslie Jespersen - Unscripted stories from the boldest founders, creators, and visionaries in the game.

Hosted on BFDTV and podcast, BFDTV is a streaming network built on a simple idea: the people doing remarkable work deserve a remarkable stage. We put the boldest founders, creators, and visionaries on camera — unscripted, unfiltered, and in their full power. Their stories, the way they actually happened. This is where you watch them.

Apply to be on the show: [email protected]

Subscribe at www.watchbfdtv.com

Connect at instagram.com/watchbfdtv