Celebrity Interviews

Grammy Winner Jermaine Dupri, Actor Chris Mulkey, and Entrepreneur Robin Sims-Allen

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with Grammy-winning producer Jermaine Dupri about Lifetime's The Rap Game, returning for a third season with Queen Latifah. Dupri, the So So Def founder behind decades of hits and discoveries from Kris Kross to Bow Wow and Da Brat, explained that finding talent comes down to genuine interest and really listening, and that the rare misses happen only when an artist is not as gifted as they believe. He described The Rap Game as unlike American Idol or The Voice, a hip-hop show built to educate kids roughly twelve to sixteen while their parents watch alongside them, teaching craft, competitiveness, and the culture itself. Looking ahead, Dupri said this season raises the talent bar and brings in more of his celebrity friends, and he shared his deeper hope for the genre: a return to artists with distinct, individual styles. He pointed out that Tupac and Biggie never sounded alike, and that Jay-Z and Nas each carved their own lane, arguing that today's artists sound too similar to become iconic. The season premieres Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Neil then welcomed veteran character actor Chris Mulkey for a Celebrity Interviews simulcast from the grotto of co-host Greg Hanna. Mulkey, a self-described lover of playing the bad guy, traced his craft from boyhood in Minnesota, where the AWA wrestling circuit and stars like Verne Gagne first awakened his love of drama, through classical theater training to a screen career of memorable heels. He shared the origins of Hank Jennings on Twin Peaks, drawn from a dangerous, charming ex-convict he once knew, and a harrowing on-set moment during Captain Phillips, filmed off Malta, when he instinctively grabbed a stunt performer back from going over a railing fifty feet above the water. He recalled advice from Clint Eastwood that sent him back to Minnesota to write and star in his own films, Loose Ends and Patty Rocks, both Sundance winners, the latter with his late wife Karen Landry. He reflected on Whiplash, whose family scene was the first shot of a film that won three Academy Awards, and named the Robert Duvall western Broken Trail as his favorite villain role. Mulkey previewed a run of new movies, including the 1990s hair-band comedy Rock Bottom with Jake Bongiovi, plus Far Haven, Deadland, and Long Shadows, and said the most important things in life are family and loyalty to friends. Find his music at chrismulkeymusic.com.

The hour closes with a Storehouse Media Group simulcast, hosted by Sherrie, featuring Robin Sims-Allen, founder and CEO of Phoenix Marcus LLC. A tech professional and entrepreneur with 22 years of experience who launched her first company in 2007, Sims-Allen built Phoenix Marcus as an umbrella brand so she would never have to pick a single lane, spanning an organic beauty and franchise venture, a consulting practice, and TotalHER, a women-only platform. She described consulting on process improvement and strategy across industries, from past defense and Amtrak-related work to embedding AI into nearly every current project, and framed her minority- and women-owned firm, based outside Atlanta, around finding problems to solve and working backward from the end goal. TotalHER, she explained, is evolving from a social platform into a future-of-work space for women, letting professionals from fitness and finance to beauty and law build brands and income in one trusted place. Her advice to entrepreneurs was to embrace failure as a lesson, to keep pivoting rather than niching into a corner, to try the exact opposite of your safe bet, and to treat skill-building as ongoing research and development, living by the creed of each one, teach one. TotalHER is live now at totalher.co. Find Jermaine Dupri on The Rap Game and Chris Mulkey's films on Amazon Prime.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with actress Kim Fields, beloved for The Facts of Life and Living Single, about her book and career. Fields, a Steelers fan who competed on Dancing with the Stars alongside Antonio Brown, reflected on nine years, from age nine to eighteen, growing up on The Facts of Life, and on the mentors who shaped her, from co-star Nancy McKeon to Norman Lear, Dick Clark, and Ruby Dee. She credited her longevity to learning her craft, doing theater, and deliberately building backup skills in directing, writing, and producing so that if one hat wasn't working she could put on another, rather than fade into a has-been at eighteen. She also named contemporaries like Nicole Ari Parker and Blair Underwood as peers who sharpen one another, iron sharpening iron. Fields lit up about Living Single finally streaming on Hulu and the flood of fan response, saying she loves how much the fans love the show. Reflecting on a journey from a single-parent home in Harlem to a lasting career, she framed the book less as a look-at-me than a look at all God has done, and encouraged listeners that rock bottom is never the end. Find her book and coffee line, including the Blessed Blend and a binge-watching Binge Blend, at KimFields.com.

Neil then welcomed retired DC homicide detective turned author and filmmaker Mitch Credle for a Criminally Good with Jen and Sherrie simulcast, presented by Storehouse Media Group. Credle spent 29 years with DC's Metropolitan Police, some 23 of them in homicide, and traced his path to the veteran detectives he idolized, part Miami Vice, part real-life heroes, before turning to writing and film. His novels Stranger in the Streets and Damaged Roots blend real cases and characters into fiction, and his five films, including the documentaries A Detective Story and 12 Years in Hell on Tubi and Informant on Prime, grew from a passion to tell DC's disappearing history through the people who lived it. He described how the leadership of running a homicide scene, where the detective is effectively in charge of everyone present, translated to directing, and recounted difficult cases including the Banita Jacks tragedy and the Colonel Brooks Tavern killing, where a childhood friend was among the victims and he refused to face the family until arrests were made nine months later. He explained why he casts real families and community members and flags graphic content on screen rather than sugarcoat it, wanting to honor victims and preserve a version of DC that is rapidly vanishing, and praised up-and-coming actors like Mark Scheiss and Michael Anderson from Informant. He previewed a serial-killer script and a new film, Brooklyn, promising untold details of the Colonel Brooks investigation. Find him as Mitch Credle across social media.

The hour closes with an AI Office Hours simulcast, where Neil and co-host Pat Riley debated where artificial intelligence is really headed. Neil shared an epiphany that he had been pouring too much time into automation loops that produced data he never used, and both argued that AI's true value is as a productivity multiplier and tool that makes a person sharper, not an autonomous replacement for human judgment. Neil described using AI conversationally as a kind of financial assistant to organize revenue, invoices, and time tracking, while stressing that it still needs a human driving it on a tight leash. They voiced skepticism about the hype around fully automated one-person AI businesses, warned against quitting a job to chase it, and predicted a reckoning for those who over-automate at the expense of their own skills, while agreeing the smart move is to use AI to become better than anyone not using it. Find Kim Fields at KimFields.com and Mitch Credle's films on Tubi and Prime.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Caregiver Dave segment, co-hosted by caregiver advocate Dave Nassaney, welcoming astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, about his book Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going. Tyson explained that his lifelong goal was simply the PhD in astrophysics, and that he sees his public role as serving the public's cosmic curiosity, even fantasizing about slipping quietly back to the lab someday. He argued that a free, pluralistic democracy depends on shared, objectively established scientific truths, that people are free to believe as they wish but that laws should rest on what is demonstrably true, and he warned that tribalism and science denial threaten the country's standing. Asked whether God and science can coexist, Tyson drew a careful distinction between a hands-off creator, a view he tied to the deism of the Founding Fathers, and literal readings that collide with the natural world. He offered the example of the mysteries God lays before Job in the Old Testament, tides, migrations, and more, noting that science has since explained nearly all of them, and cautioned that placing God only in the shrinking gaps of scientific ignorance leaves an ever-receding faith. He described StarTalk as a blend of science, humor, and pop culture, using shared references as a scaffold to make science relevant, and Cosmic Queries as a collection of the deepest questions readers have asked, from why we are here to how it all began and will end. When Nassaney raised caregiving, Tyson reflected on his mother the gerontologist, on caring for aging relatives, and on how longer lifespans have left society, and undervalued caregivers, unprepared. Cosmic Queries is available at booksellers and on Amazon.

Neil then welcomed author Paul Shemella, a retired Navy SEAL captain, lecturer, and caregiver whose memoir Into the Mist: An Alzheimer's Journey chronicles his wife Lena's decline and his devotion to her. Shemella explained that dementia is an umbrella term covering roughly a hundred conditions, of which Alzheimer's is the most common, and spoke candidly about learning as he went, eventually placing Lena in memory care and coming to peace with a decision that helped them both. He stressed that up to forty-five percent of dementia cases may be preventable through lifestyle, pointing to diet, exercise, sleep, social connection, and staying intellectually engaged, and urged early attention to warning signs like repeatedly losing things, the value of ruling out reversible mimics before seeing a neurologist, and the promise of newer blood tests and treatments that work best when caught early. His recent Newsweek essay warns the American healthcare system is unprepared for a coming wave, and he shared his mantra of living from one smile to the next. Readers can find him on Substack and on Amazon, where his memoir and earlier novels appear.

The program closes with a back-to-school conversation with Vanessa Vakharia, the Toronto-based Math Guru, on setting students up for a distraction-free year. She urged parents to choose tools that do one thing well, noted many states are moving to limit phones in schools, and recommended studying at the kitchen table and starting school-year routines two weeks early. In a segment tied to Texas Instruments, she praised the new TI-84 Evo graphing calculator for its familiar, icon-based screen and, above all, for having no AI and no internet, so students stay on task. Vakharia stressed that math anxiety is not a life sentence, that confidence grows through consistency, and that math, like life, is a step-by-step journey rather than a race to the answer. Find Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmic Queries and Paul Shemella's Into the Mist on Amazon, and Vanessa Vakharia's back-to-school picks at education.ti.com/evo.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley about his book Saint Mick: My Journey from Hardcore Legend to Santa's Jolly Elf. Neil, a former pro wrestler himself, thanked Foley for once steering him toward promoter Bert Prentice and the independent circuit early in his own career. Foley reflected on a run that exceeded even his own expectations, from grinding out a 58-minute match in front of just 25 people in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to stardom in WCW and the WWF, and shared the lesson that it is not the size of the crowd but the impact you have on the people in the room. That same conviction, he said, drives his six years portraying Santa Claus, and he told a moving story about a Christmas Eve visit to a young cancer patient on Long Island, whose transformation he ranked among the finest moments of his career. Foley explained that he wrote the book himself, partly for his children, and credited Stephanie McMahon with convincing him the offbeat, touching Christmas tale could reach beyond wrestling fans. He previewed his 20 Years of Hell tour, built around bringing that infamous match back to life. Find him at realmickfoley.com.

Neil then turned to a J Len Sciuto Show simulcast, where the retired Coast Guard officer and thriller author offered his own geopolitical analysis, opening, as he noted, with a disclaimer that it is opinion and discussion drawn from public reporting rather than settled fact. He walked through his reading of tensions around Iran's nuclear program and a fortified mountain site near the Natanz facility, the risk of the Houthis widening the conflict, and the military scenarios he fears could follow, while also touching the Abraham Accords, the long U.S. history of regime-change operations, and rising oil prices. Drawing on 36 years in the Coast Guard, he tied the themes to his bestselling submarine thriller Hades Crypt and a coming sequel, Desperate Countermeasures, noting that a large share of his book royalties supports junior enlisted service members. Reach him at jlenscuto.com.

Neil then welcomed the legendary Suzanne Somers, author of Two's Company: A 50-Year Romance with Lessons Learned in Love, Life, and Business. Somers shared the story of meeting her husband, Canadian television star Alan Hamel, on a San Francisco game-show set, and of a partnership so close the two have not spent a night apart in decades while also running a business together. She recounted her rise on Three's Company, being fired after seeking pay equal to the men on the number-one show, and the smear campaign that followed, then how she and Hamel refused to dwell on what she had lost and instead branded Suzanne Somers, from the ThighMaster to headlining Las Vegas. Her throughline was simple: problems do not define you, how you respond to them does, and the goal is to turn setbacks into opportunities. Find her at SuzanneSomers.com.

The hour closes with actor and director Mario Van Peebles on Syfy's Superstition, in which he writes, directs, produces, and stars alongside his daughter Morgana. Van Peebles described growing up in the Van Peebles independent-film family as an apprenticeship in every job on a set, from cables and lighting to directing, so that wearing many hats now feels natural. He pitched Superstition as the story of a loving Southern family in the funeral business, running the Hastings Funeral Home, who battle demons rising as humanity does more damage to the planet, each episode built around a different piece of Gothic Americana. He shared bits of his father Melvin's wisdom, that luck is preparation meeting opportunity, and that it is not what you face but how you face it that reveals you. Find Mick Foley's Saint Mick and Suzanne Somers' Two's Company in bookstores, Jay Len Sciuto at jlenscuto.com, and Mario Van Peebles on Superstition.

Ben Stein on The Capitalist Code, Author Todd R. Mitchell Jr., and GildaGram with Dr. Gilda Carle

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with economist, author, and actor Ben Stein about his book The Capitalist Code: It Can Save Your Life and Make You Very Rich. Stein traced his belief in owning capital back to his father, a prominent free-market economist, and to a family shaped by the Great Depression, arguing that owning capital, not just labor, is what gives ordinary people security. His central message was refreshingly simple: most people will never beat the market by picking stocks, so the smart move is to steadily buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and let compounding do the work over decades. He pointed to Social Security as far too thin to rely on, even for high earners, and framed buying the index as effectively owning a microscopic share of all American business without the headaches of running one. He urged listeners to start young and put investing on autopilot, predicting the market's next move is likely down before it climbs higher, and shared that Warren Buffett, whom he called a friend, endorsed the book by saying its readers need no other guide to investing. Stein balanced the financial talk with reflections on living for today as well as tomorrow, on order and discipline as keys to happiness, and on his gratitude for America, and he previewed a coming project on sobriety drawn from his years in recovery and his losses of friends and relatives to addiction. The advice is his own; listeners should weigh it for their own situation.

Neil then welcomed author Todd R. Mitchell Jr., joined by his fiancee, to talk about his book Never Gave Up. A gifted athlete who earned a college basketball scholarship without ever playing a high school game and went on to eight years of arena football, Mitchell described how alcoholism shadowed every opportunity and closed door after door. Asked where he would be had he reached the NBA or NFL, he did not hesitate: homeless, broke, or dead, because the money would have arrived long before he reached the root of the problem. He traced a hard road through homelessness, incarceration, and car accidents, including spending his father's last twenty dollars on alcohol instead of food, and credited his turnaround to faith and to a partner who visited him every day during rehab and stood by him through relapse, understanding that recovery is a process rather than a single decision. His daughter, and the disappointment on her face one difficult day in Atlanta, became another anchor, and he spoke about the patience and grace it took his fiancee to walk beside him without giving up. Today Mitchell has finished school, earned a film production degree from Miami Dade College, and launched Born From The Ashes Mitchell Production Studios in Jacksonville. He and Neil went deep on the question every retired athlete faces, what you build once the crowd noise stops. Never Gave Up is available on Amazon, where it has been a number-one new release.

The hour closes with two GildaGram simulcasts featuring co-host Dr. Gilda Carle, author of Real Men Don't Go Woke. In the first, Carle discussed the themes of her book, which she frames as an examination of male mental health and a rising rate of suicide among men and, increasingly, boys, arguing that men are being discouraged from speaking up and expressing themselves; she illustrated the point through Will Smith and responded directly to online critics of her work. In the second, she offered her take on a viral story about a workplace romance caught on camera, using it to talk through questions of power dynamics, consent, and consequences when a relationship crosses lines of authority. Find Ben Stein's The Capitalist Code and Todd R. Mitchell Jr.'s Never Gave Up on Amazon, and Dr. Gilda Carle's Real Men Don't Go Woke wherever books are sold.

The Mike Vilardi Show

Episode Title: William McNamara on “The Trouble with Billy,” Hollywood Survival, and Independent TelevisionEpisode Summary

In this episode of The Mike Vilardi Show, Mike Vilardi and Neil “The Media Giant” Haley welcome actor, writer, director, and producer William “Billy” McNamara. Known for Copycat, Chasers, Stealing Home, Dream a Little Dream, and Surviving the Game, McNamara shares the journey behind his independent series, The Trouble with Billy.

Billy wrote, directed, produced, and starred in ten episodes—roughly 300 minutes of television—while navigating limited resources, legal complications, union disputes, and a changing streaming industry. Season One is now available on Red Coral Universe.

The series is loosely inspired by McNamara’s life but greatly exaggerated. His character is a former 1980s actor who believes aliens abducted him and returned him to Hollywood after ten years.

Nobody remembers him. He sleeps on his niece’s couch. After hosting Alien Abductees Anonymous, he is thrown out and forced to live in a 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with his sick pit bull.

Billy must raise $15,000 for the dog’s heart transplant. Every time life improves, another bad decision sends him crashing down. The show combines Hollywood satire, alien-abduction comedy, homelessness, friendship, and determination.

The first season includes ten episodes, about 150 actors, and more than 75 locations. Featured performers include Billy Baldwin, Angus Macfadyen, Costas Mandylor, Tom Sizemore, Sally Kirkland, and Robert Wagner.

Billy says many people doubted he could complete such an ambitious independent production, but he refused to quit.

The series was delayed by a Screen Actors Guild dispute involving pension and health contributions. The issue prevented Billy from selling the show and resulted in a two-year legal fight.

By the time the legal issues were resolved, streaming had shifted toward advertising-revenue deals, vertical content, and lower-cost programming.

Billy eventually connected with producer Larry Meistrich and Red Coral Universe, which released the show on a non-exclusive basis. The platform is available through Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and smart televisions.

Billy is developing Season Two and working with investors, brands, and production partners. A New Jersey bank may finance part of the production through a New York State rebate, while Red Coral explores sponsorships and minimum guarantees.

Billy discusses the unexpected revival of Copycat, the thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. When it began trending internationally on Netflix, his IMDb ranking jumped to 161, and he gained thousands of social-media followers overnight.

Other career highlights include Stealing Home, Dream a Little Dream, Doing Time on Maple Drive, Surviving the Game, Chasers, and Beggars and Choosers.

Billy says Doing Time on Maple Drive remains especially meaningful because viewers still tell him how the film helped them discuss sexuality and family struggles.

After more than three decades as a working actor, Billy now prefers writing, directing, and producing. He stepped away from auditions to focus on The Trouble with Billy.

The conversation also creates possible collaborations involving the Radiate TV Film Festival, Red Coral Universe, and distribution partnerships. Neil invites Billy to join an upcoming Hollywood panel.

Website: TheTroubleWithBilly.com
Instagram: @WilliamMcNamara108
Watch: The Trouble with Billy on Red Coral Universe

Hosted by: Mike Vilardi and Neil “The Media Giant” Haley
Guest: William McNamara
Produced by: Media Giant Productions

The Trouble with BillyBuilding the Series Against the OddsSAG Dispute and DistributionSeason Two PlansCopycat Finds a New AudienceFrom Actor to CreatorConnect with William McNamara

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with actor Philip Winchester about bringing his Chicago Justice character, prosecutor Peter Stone, over to Law & Order: SVU. Winchester explained that Dick Wolf revived the character after Justice ended, dropping Stone into New York around a right-to-die case and the death of his father, and pulling him in through Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy. Where Justice kept Stone in the courtroom, SVU digs into the man himself, his brokenness, family secrets, and the pressure of joining a team that does not want him there. Winchester described Stone as someone who sees the law in black and white after years in homicide, only to discover that the SVU world is anything but, as victims forget, are coerced, or are impaired, and Olivia Benson begrudgingly takes him under her wing. He credited the writing staff, including Michael Chernuchin and others with legal backgrounds, for the impassioned closing arguments and for teaching him a subject entirely new to him, and he pointed to the show's long run as proof that audiences respond to flawed people who still find the strength to do right. His arc airs on SVU at 9 p.m. Eastern, and he can be found by searching his name online.

Neil then welcomed recurring host Dr. Robert E. Marx, the internationally recognized oral and maxillofacial surgeon and author, for two segments on The Dr. Robert E. Marx Show. In the first, Marx offered an educational take on the military's plan to test troops' testosterone levels and offer replacement therapy to those who test low, arguing the program is medically supervised, dose-controlled, and a matter of choice, and calling much of the political criticism uninformed. He distinguished replacement therapy from the super-physiologic doses that gave steroids their bad name, walked through the balance of testosterone and estrogen in both sexes, and tied a generational decline in men's testosterone to dyes and additives in the food and drug supply, praising the current direction on those issues. In a lighter second segment, Marx reviewed the FIFA World Cup, calling Spain a deserving champion over Argentina, praising the tournament as a security and economic success for the United States, and playfully knocking soccer's tendency toward theatrical flopping, suggesting the sport adopt hockey's embellishment penalty. He noted the growth potential for the game as NIL money reaches college sports. His book, 28 Life-Changing Patients, is on Amazon, and he previewed lectures in Winnipeg, New Jersey, and Aventura, Florida.

The hour closed with a Criminally Good with Jen and Sherrie simulcast, presented by Storehouse Media Group, featuring Wade Williamson, host of the Crime and Entertainment podcast, who lived the kind of story true crime usually only reports. Williamson recounted a late-night confrontation in his South Carolina home with a man connected to his estranged, and now reconciled, wife, an encounter that stayed civil for hours before turning violent. Licensed to carry and recovering from recent back surgery, he fired in self-defense when the man attacked and threatened his life, then immediately called 911, only to be charged with murder days later and to face the possibility of life in prison. He described a roughly five-year ordeal, dragged out by COVID, that cost him a fifteen-year job, drained his retirement savings, and ran up steep legal bills, until high-profile Charleston attorney Andy Savage helped clear his name in what Savage called a clean shoot. Williamson explained how launching his podcast while on house arrest became his therapy and outlet, and ultimately his path forward, and noted that he and his wife came through the ordeal still together. Find Philip Winchester's work on Law & Order: SVU, Dr. Robert E. Marx's 28 Life-Changing Patients on Amazon, and Wade Williamson's Crime and Entertainment podcast wherever you listen.

NeverEnding Story's Tami Stronach, plus Mina Valentine, AI Office Hours with Pat Riley, Grace Lynx Jenkins, and Ryan Aguas of Reignstorm Group

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with actress and dancer Tami Stronach, who at ten played the Childlike Empress in Wolfgang Petersen's 1984 classic The NeverEnding Story and has since come full circle to family entertainment. Stronach walked Neil through an audition process that ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles to a final nerve-wracking callback at Bavaria Studios in Germany, where she learned she had the role the next day. She recalled reading Michael Ende's novel as a ten-year-old to prepare, the long days on a set she loved, and crediting Petersen above all for helping her fully believe in each scene. Though her screen time was brief, her character became one of the film's most remembered, and Stronach reflected on how the experience left her with a lifelong soft spot for fantasy, which she believes lets us digest hard truths from a safer, more open place. She explained the family decision to step away from celebrity as a child, in part because the scripts that followed did not speak to her and some carried violence or nudity she wanted no part of at eleven, choosing dance instead, studying at SUNY Purchase, running her own company for two decades, and later teaching at Marymount Manhattan College. Having her daughter Maya pulled everything together into Paper Canoe Company, the family entertainment venture she now runs with her husband, complete with puppetry that echoes the film. She is also returning to the screen in the meta indie film Ultra Low, in which the cast plays themselves, and is choreographing a video for the company's album. After years out of the spotlight, she is embracing fans again at Comic Cons.

The hour continued with a simulcast of The Mina Valentine Show, where the historical romance author, recovering from recent surgery, shared her gratitude to readers and her eagerness to get back to writing. She described plotting a new storyline from her hospital bed, the painstaking historical research behind her London-set novels, and the days when a story simply pours out. Her books are available at MinaValentin.com, with autographed copies on request.

Neil then turned to two conversations about artificial intelligence. In AI Office Hours with co-host Pat Riley, the two argued that AI's real power lies in making a person superhuman as an assistant and brainstorming partner rather than replacing employees through autonomous agents, comparing the current wave of one-person "AI businesses" to hype that will not sustain itself, and cautioning against quitting a job to chase it without a real brand or product. That theme carried into a visit with bestselling author Grace Lynx Jenkins, who ran her own thriller through AI tools for analysis and found the feedback, strengths in character-driven, psychological suspense and a note to work on pacing, matched her instincts, alongside a comparison to bestselling novelist Dean Koontz. Both agreed AI should sharpen an artist's work, never create it, and that creativity remains human. Find her at gracelynksjenkins.com.

The program closes with a Reignstorm Radio Show simulcast featuring co-host Ryan Aguas on his role at Reignstorm Group, the financial firm founded by his father. Aguas explained how his MBA and media background drew him in as director of network development, bringing brand-building to a financial world he says underuses it, and walked through the firm's approach to tax-saving and wealth-building strategies, from a student-loan payoff method to the case for saving and planning young. He stressed the value of talking to advisors, accountants, and business owners rather than navigating a tax code of tens of thousands of pages alone. Reach him at reignstormmediagroup.com. Find Tami Stronach's work through Paper Canoe Company, Mina Valentine at MinaValentin.com, and Grace Lynx Jenkins at gracelynksjenkins.com.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Celebrity Interviews simulcast from the Grotto, co-hosted by Greg Hanna, welcoming actor, author, and martial artist Ron Thomas, who played Bobby Brown in The Karate Kid and returned to the role in Cobra Kai. Thomas shared the story he loves to tell, that he was already a second-degree black belt when he auditioned and was told to keep quiet about it because producers wanted actors first, and that stunt coordinator Pat Johnson later trusted him to choreograph his own tournament fight scenes. He described Bobby as the good bad guy who knew when a line had been crossed, pointing to a cut scene in which he throws his belt at Kreese's feet and walks out, and explained how the Cobra Kai creators reimagined Bobby as a pastor still trying to do right. A favorite memory was driving Pat Morita across the valley to surprise the students at his old dojo. Thomas, a former world-champion sport jujitsu competitor, also discussed his kids' TED Talk on focus and screen time, inspired by prying his daughter away from her devices, his book The Hidden Life Lessons of Mr. Miyagi, and a new children's personal-development series. His message: never stop growing and creating. Find him at SenseiRonThomas.com.

Neil then welcomed retired NYPD detectives Tom Smith and Dan Murphy, hosts of the Gold Shields podcast, in a Criminally Good with Sherrie and Jen simulcast presented by Storehouse Media Group. With more than fifty years of combined experience, the two met on the Bronx Gang Squad some twenty-five years ago and built a guest-centric true-crime show, now past 170 episodes, that keeps the focus on the detectives who lived the cases rather than on themselves. They traced its origins to a desire to restore respect for law enforcement, recalled meeting Neil's hosts at CrimeCon, and singled out standout episodes, including a challenge from former Chief of Department Louis Anemone that led them to the 1940 World's Fair bombing, the only unsolved line-of-duty homicide in NYPD history, and the Emanuela Orlandi Vatican case, recorded in English and Italian. Guests have ranged from Bundy survivor Kathy Kleiner to Taya Kyle and a Navy SEAL who led a team on the bin Laden raid. The pair also introduced Impact, their patent-protected, food-grade alternative to pepper spray now used by more than a hundred departments, at carryimpact.com. Find the show at thegoldshieldshow.com.

The hour continued with a back-to-school conversation with Vanessa Vakharia, the Toronto-based Math Guru, on setting students up for a distraction-free year. She urged parents to be intentional about tools, choosing devices that do one thing well, and noted that many states are moving to limit phones in schools. Her practical advice included studying at the kitchen or dining table rather than the bedroom, and starting school-year routines a good two weeks early. In a segment tied to Texas Instruments, she praised the new TI-84 Evo graphing calculator for its familiar, icon-based screen and, above all, for what it lacks, no AI and no internet, so students stay on task and build the tool familiarity that research links to better test performance. Vakharia stressed that math anxiety is not a life sentence, that confidence grows through consistency, and that math, like life, is about the step-by-step journey rather than the destination, a theme Neil echoed from his own years teaching math. Details are at education.ti.com/evo.

The program closes with a GildaGram simulcast where co-host Dr. Gilda Carle, author of Real Men Don't Go Woke, turned to men's health, arguing that men too often avoid asking for help and should be viewed as a whole system rather than just muscles and testosterone. She began walking through her ten ways men can optimize their health, starting with annual checkups and knowing your key numbers.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with Today Show weatherman Al Roker, who walked Neil through the pre-dawn routine behind live morning television. He is up around 3:45, on the phone with his meteorologist comparing models, maps, and notes before heading to the studio by about 5:45 for the two-hour broadcast, and he admitted he never quite manages to get to bed on time. Roker turned to his Hallmark Movies and Mysteries film, The Morning Show Mystery: Murder on the Menu, part of a series drawn from his own mystery novels, in which his chef and morning-show-host character Billy Blessing, reimagined for the screen and played by Holly Robinson Peete, is pulled into clearing a rival celebrity chef accused of murder while navigating a will-they-won't-they with a homicide detective she once dated. He praised Hallmark's family-friendly throwback tone, a nod to Matlock and Murder She Wrote, talked up live-tweeting alongside viewers, and, writing his recent books on an iPad in airports and on planes, reflected on how reading and writing became twin passions. The film airs Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Neil then welcomed physician and author Dr. Paul Corona, known as the Doctor for Depression, whose Mind and Body Healing approach argues that mental and physical health are inseparable. He laid out the principles at the heart of his Corona Protocol: recognizing the mind-body connection, and how stress surfaces as real physical symptoms; reading the full spectrum of conditions such as bipolar disorder rather than the popular caricature of it; and aiming for genuine remission, patients feeling fully like themselves again, rather than settling for Band-Aid symptom relief. Corona stressed careful history-taking over rushed prescriptions, close individualized follow-up, and getting to root causes, and he addressed the criticism his outspokenness draws by framing his stance as pro-patient rather than anti-medication. His books range from the Healing the Mind and Body trilogy to The Corona Protocol and its Prescriber's Guide for clinicians, and his reality series The Dr. Paul Show streams on Roku, Amazon Fire, and YouTube. He can be found at drpaulcoronamd.com, and Neil floated featuring the show on Rayd8 Television.

The hour continued with author and coach David Chametzky, host of Peace, Love and Bring a Bat, who returned with a health-driven update. What he assumed was simple extra weight turned out to include serious heart blockages, a wake-up call that has him twenty pounds down and refocused on wellness. A ghostwriter with a stack of finished manuscripts now in the edit queue, Chametzky made the case for authenticity over shiny-object promises, urging people to build their own book and brand rather than chase compilation projects and hollow bestseller badges, and framing real leadership as leaving an impact even after you have left the room. He described relaunching his podcast with thirteen episodes at once, partnering with Neil's Media Giant operation, and offering anyone who reaches out a free half hour to map out speaking, a book, or a podcast of their own.

The hour also carried a Wounded Sisters simulcast with bestselling author and nurse Mary Shearer Eckert, who encouraged listeners not to let the past define them, to forgive themselves and move forward, chase their bucket lists as she did by skydiving at seventy, and find joy in the journey rather than the destination. Her novel Wounded Sisters, set in the rugged beauty of West Texas, has a sequel she expects to finish by the end of summer. The program closes with a Singularity simulcast where host and author Gary Lyon Otto explored where computing heads next, contrasting digital, quantum, and analog systems and marveling that the human brain does holographic, analog work on a tiny fraction of the power a data center demands.