They Thought I Was You

Two weeks ago, we talked about Mary-Kate and Ashley's appearance on Jay Leno in 2002, and we noticed a pattern. Every talk show host who ever interviewed Mary-Kate and Ashley (with the exception of Rosie O'Donnell) always did a terrible job. They always ask them if they have boyfriends, they never ask them serious questions about the projects they're working on, and the conversation is almost always painfully awkward. So we decided we needed some context, and see how late night hosts talked to other young women in Hollywood around this time.

Turns out, it's not just a Mary-Kate and Ashley problem! Today, we watch interviews with Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Hayden Panettiere from the early 2000's. We also watch more recent interviews with Millie Bobby Brown, Sadie Sink and Charli D'Amelio to see if this these problems persist today.

The most striking thing we noticed is how the hosts talk to "the scary girls" (i.e. Britney, Lindsay, and Paris) vs "the good girls" (Hilary, Miley, Hayden & MKA). The scary girls are truly punching bags that hosts take pleasure in making uncomfortable, and the good girls are constantly warned not to turn into "one of those scary girls." The pressure is always put on the young women not to succumb to the dangers of the industry-- never the media considering the problem might be themselves.

You can watch all the interviews we talk about on this podcast, and the full video version of this podcast by subscribing to our Patreon here.

The videos we watched:

THEN
Hilary Duff on Jay Leno (2003)
Paris Hilton on David Letterman (2007)
Britney Spears on Jay Leno (2003)
Miley Cyrus on 20/20 (2007)
Hayden Panettiere on The View (2006)
Hayden on Jay Leno (2007)
Lindsay Lohan on Conan O'Brien (2004)
Lindsay Lohan on Jay Leno (2006)

NOW
Sadie Sink Roundtable (2018)
Millie Bobby Brown on Jimmy Fallon (2017)
Charli D'Amelio (2020)

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Are you Jay Leno and want to explain yourself? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

We hope ya'll are ready for this one. We had the tremendous honor of speaking with the actress who played one of the most tragic characters in American cinema (or at least in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Universe). Today, we speak to Holly Towne, aka Lyndi, from Getting There.

Holly Towne is actually our very first guest who was also a Mary-Kate and Ashley fan before getting cast in one of their movies (the actual dream). Holly tells us about the magical moment when she landed the role, gives us an exclusive story on how the movie was rewritten because of her, and gushes over how wonderful Mary-Kate and Ashley were to work with.

Holly also opens up to us about her struggles playing characters like Lyndi, who she often got typecast as throughout her career. We unpack the harmful ways movies & media treats "airhead" characters like this, and the unfair ridicule they receive from other characters. This conversation takes us to depths of #JusticeforLyndi we had no idea we'd reach, but are so grateful for uncovering.

Huge thank you to Holly for being so open during this interview. We were moved by her vulnerability and so, so excited to see where her next chapter takes her <3

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this interview here.

Follow Holly!
Instagram- @adorablydevious
Twitter- @dorablydevious

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Thoughts/comments? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

Happy Valentine's Day! And what better way to celebrate the day of love than with the thing we love the most-- Two of a Kind!

Today, we're jumping out of our timeline to go back and review Two of a Kind, Ep 15 "No Man's Land" (aka the Valentine's Day episode). Last week, Lani corrected Becca's memory of this episode saying that Ashley's sports date was with fan favorite Pokey Valentine. However, after watching the episode, it turns out the sports boy was actually named Eric. In the spirit of forgiveness (the true meaning of Valentine's Day), Becca reconciled with Lani and they were able to enjoy this absolutely perfect episode of television.

We also go off on a few tangents, the positives & negatives of binge-watching television, the absolute magic of sitcoms and their wacky characters, and once again, why Two of a Kind was so much better than So Little Time.

And even though he's not actually present in this episode, we're naming this episode "Happy Pokey Valentine's Day" because we think it's cute. We hope you enjoy!

Watch the episode: Two of a Kind, Ep 15 "No Man's Land"

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this podcast here.

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Did you invent the name Pokey Valentine? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

We're continuing our journey through 2002 with a type of episode we haven't done in a while-- unpacking a Mary-Kate and Ashley interview and its implications in their larger treatment in the media! Today we're talking about Mary-Kate and Ashley's appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to promote Getting There... weird!

In 2002, Mary-Kate and Ashley were simultaneously outsiders and leading forces in Hollywood. The way Jay Leno awkwardly asks them about school, boys, and driving is a prime example of how mainstream media really had no idea what to do with Mary-Kate and Ashley. At the time, they were making their own content, had their own self-contained brand, and operated almost entirely outside of the Hollywood studio & television network system. The Hollywood Reporter named them the "most powerful young women in Hollywood," and yet, Jay Leno himself struggles to ask them a single question about their career.

To give us some context, we decided to also watch Jay Leno's interview with Kelly Clarkson in 2002, just a few months later. Sure, Kelly had just won American Idol, a dark-horse reality show that became a global phenomenon, so maybe it's not a perfect one-to-one comparison, but she was just 5 years older than Mary-Kate and Ashley at the time, and Jay Leno seems to have no issues asking her questions about her experience & career.

You can watch their Tonight Show appearance in 2002 and the video version of our podcast by subscribing to our Patreon here.

Kelly Clarkson on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2002

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Are you Jay Leno and want a rebuttal? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

We're jumping backwards in our timeline just a bit to revisit a topic that will always be on our minds: the Mary-Kate and Ashley cruises. And today, sharing her truly remarkable experience on Mary-Kate and Ashley's 2000 cruise on the Baltic Sea, we are joined by the one and only Chloe Schildhause.

Chloe first shared her cruise story in 2014 in an article for Vanity Fair and has recently turned that article into an experimental short film. We were so excited to have her on the podcast to dig into more details about her truly bizarre experience being called out by Mary-Kate in a Q&A, scaring Mary-Kate and Ashley out of a McDonald's in Estonia, and ultimately having a private lunch with them and 4 other girls.

Hearing the details of Chloe's emotional roller coaster on board the MS Maasdam with the Olsen twins made us realize that the ultimate dream of going on a cruise with Mary-Kate and Ashley was maybe not all that it seemed. With neither Mary-Kate and Ashley nor their 200 fans (who were desperate to be their best friends) having a clear understanding of the boundaries that were supposed to be followed, it's no wonder these trips ended in heartbreak for many kids just like Chloe.

This conversation still has us thinking about the many layers, complexities, and dangers of para-social relationships, and we are so, so grateful to Chloe for talking with us.

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this interview here.

Links from Chloe:
Instagram- @chloish
Article- At Sea with Mary-Kate and Ashley, and 200 Other Olsen Super-Fans
Short film- Olsen: The True Story of a Cruise with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Do you have a story about meeting Mary-Kate and Ashley? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

You asked, we answered. Well, some of you never asked, but others of you have insisted for months that the Mary-Kate and Ashley books are a very important part of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Universe and have been begging us to talk about them. So today, we read our first Dualstar book, Mary-Kate and Ashley Sweet 16: Getting There.

After reading this book, we realize this was a very chaotic book to read first. But since we just finished reviewing Getting There (the movie) for our podcast, we wanted to dive into this right away while the movie was still fresh. And a listener tipped us off that this book isn't just a retelling of the movie, but a meta, behind-the-scenes look at the "making" of Getting There.

And that's... kinda right. This book (the fourth of the "Sweet 16" series) is an alternate universe Mary-Kate and Ashley who were randomly scouted to be in a movie and filmed the exact same Getting There movie that we watched, but with a completely different alternate-reality cast & production team.

This book is wacky! And we unpack it as best we can, from the singing Elvis lovegrams, to the terrible manipulative friends, and even a confirmation that Ashley meeting Charly in the diner was, IN FACT, a gay romance scene!

We hope you enjoy (and can keep the timeline straight) as we dive into our first of what we're pretty sure will be many book review episodes.

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this podcast here.

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

What book do you want us to read next? Email us at: [email protected]

Support the show

We cannot believe we kept this interview a secret for an ENTIRE month! It has been absolutely excruciating, and we are so relieved and incredibly excited to finally share our special guest this week. We had the honor of talking with everyone's favorite annoying neighbor, Mary-Kate's best unrequited love, and the sweetest pony-loving, guitar-playing, lobster costume-wearing guy, Larry Slotnick himself, Jesse Head.

Jesse tells us about how he first got into acting, the magical experience of being cast in his first sitcom, and his genuine love and admiration of Mary-Kate and Ashley, and what spending a year on the set of So Little Time was actually like. He also shares with us his devastation when he learned that the show was cancelled, how heartbreak pulled him away from acting, and his journey to where he is today.

And we finally get an answer on our most burning question: was the second half of So Little Time actually supposed to be the second season?

Jesse tells us about it all in this interview that we still can't believe happened. We hope you feel the same magic listening that we felt recording!

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this interview here.

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Follow Jesse Head: @jessej0hnhead
Check out his art: @arto.bot

And yes, we are STILL looking for photos of Ashley's wedding. If you have leads or want to send us a question about this interview, email us at [email protected]

Support the show

We're BACK for Season 4 with an episode we did not plan on doing. But when one of our girls is in the news, we have no choice but to drop everything. And last week, we got some big news... Ashley Fuller Olsen got MARRIED!

But of course in true Olsen fashion, details about the matrimony are not widely available. And since we respect our girls, we tried our best not to speculate, but instead talk about what we know-- her husband's name (Louis Eisner), the very limited 50 guests that attended in LA, and the date that it happened (Dec 28th, a new date to commit to memory). The one time we do allow ourselves to speculate is on the discussions between Louis & Ashley that must have happened to create Ashley's iconic machete photo from 2021.

We also talk about the media's treatment of Mary-Kate's wedding years ago, and predict if the same type of "cigarette bowl" rumors will start again with Ashley's wedding. And we get sidetracked as Lani digs herself into a hole she'll never be able to get out of about what age a woman "should" get married.

We'll be back next week with the interview we intended on dropping today, and trust us, you're not gonna want to miss it. But until then, the BIGGEST congrats to Ashley & Louis! We're so happy, we're barely offended we weren't invited!

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this podcast here.

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Did you have details on what Ashley wore to her wedding??? Email us at [email protected]

Support the show

As we come to the end of the year and Season 3 of our podcast, we thought we'd do something we've never done before-- a Q&A episode with YOUR questions.

We asked our listeners, Instagram followers and Patreon subscribers to send us questions about the podcast, Mary-Kate and Ashley, or us personally, and you came THROUGH. We got so many truly fantastic questions like which MKA film would we like to rewrite the most, what era would we most like to be friends with MKA in, and do we think they're aware of our podcast ☠️

We had so much fun answering these, even if some of the questions made us fight. But hey, that's the mark of a good Q! 

We're so grateful for everyone who submitted questions, and every listener who has supported us this year. We quite honestly couldn't and wouldn't do this without you, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

We'll be back with new episodes (and reveal our secret interview!!) in January :)

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Did you have a question we didn't answer in this episode? Email us at [email protected]

Support the show

Today we conclude our two-part epic journey discussing Mary-Kate and Ashley's sixth direct-to-video full-length feature film, Getting There, about Mary-Kate and Ashley's misadventure getting to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Picking up right where we left off with the gang stranded at home for a third time, in this episode we get to see them finally leave California. We discuss the absolute horror it would be to lose your sister on a Greyhound bus, our theory that their female friend Charly might have originally been written as a boy, the film's uncomfortable socioeconomic disconnect from reality, and the wild things we thought we heard because of the terrible diction in so many of the lines in this film.

We also break down in excruciating detail just how much money these teens poured down the drain on this botched road trip, and decide once and for all: is the fun Getting There, or is the fun just... there?

So zip up your Chanel ski suit, get in your private jet and leave the chaperones behind because today we're skiing with Alex Reisher (who is NOT, in fact, a real Olympian)!

Subscribe to our Patreon to watch the full video version of this podcast here.

Rewatch Getting There in @SimplyOlsen's instagram bio, who deserves a gold medal.

Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms

Did you think this film was totally HYPE? Email us at [email protected]

Support the show