Jodi Lee: Hello and welcome to Covered, a podcast that helps you figure out what's going on in the news and how you feel about it. Annie Pullar: Here to guide you through the biggest stories of the week, we are your hosts, journalists, Annie Puller and Jodie Lee. Jodi Lee: On this week's episode we dive into Annie Pullar: A race to rescue hundreds in Nepal after a devastating natural disaster with more than 30 Australians still missing. Jodi Lee: Yeah, the Queen of Country Music died this week after a secret battle with cancer. We take a look back at Dolly Parton's legacy. Annie Pullar: And a sacred cathedral in Brisbane somehow finds itself in the center of an OnlyFans stoush after featuring in a raunchy reality TV show. But first let's go to our honorable mentions. These are the stories that don't quite warrant a deep dive, but are worth getting your head across this week. Jodi Lee: Yes, and our very first honorable mention is that federal Labour has found itself in hot water over what else but migration. Yet again, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke came out publicly and said that refugee numbers would be cut by up to a third in the next financial year. That would see 6,000 fewer people let into Australia on humanitarian visas, which would bring our migration numbers back in line with what they were under Scott Morrison's government a number of years ago. back Ventures revolted at the sound of this idea, and it forced Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to come out and say, Don't believe everything you read, it's not happening. He reassured the public that our humanitarian intake would not change, and it's currently sitting at around 20,000 people every year. Obviously, we know that Labour has been under huge pressure to spell out exactly where it stands on the issue of migration, given it's such a hot topic and one that One Nation speaks so much about. Annie Pullar: Yeah, not a great look, but let's move on to our next honorable mention. We have an update actually on a story we bought you last week. Harry and Megan, the Duke and Duchess. Have slid, I think we can say, back into the UK after six years living away in the US. They discreetly touched down on a private jet with their two kids, Archie and Lilibet. Apparently, also while King Charles was on holidays, the kids are already enrolled in a British school and they're apparently due to start classes there next week. We're told the couple are basing themselves at a private residence in the Cots world, so no royal residence here. Though palace insiders are saying that there's nothing permanent we should read into this. It's being framed as an extended stay rather than a full-time return. It also comes as Harry has actually separately been hit with a fresh legal bill. He and a wider group, including singer Elton John, lost a privacy case against a British tabloid just a couple of months ago, and now they apparently have to stump up $18 million, with total costs potentially topping 65 million, and that's Australian. Jodi Lee: Holy smokes. Our third honourable mention, though, is that there's been no update on the Victoria Police investigation into allegations of sexual assault at a hotel party attended by at least five Sydney Swans players. Those players have been stood down for the remainder of the season and they were excluded from all Australian selection after three women went to police following those late night shenanigans at the Pullman Hotel in East Melbourne. Despite strong words from the league, from the club and Rightfully, from most members of the media. Another club has since been caught behaving badly. The Richmond Tigers were captured on camera at a Mad Monday celebration at a regional pub in Victoria, obviously drinking, and at least two of them were seen to be spanking one another on the bottom. Club officials denied though that those players were making any reference to the Swans crisis. Annie Pullar: Honestly, the timing of that could not be worse. Just when you thought Jodi Lee: Not ideal. Annie Pullar: things couldn't get worse, they they seemingly do. Jodi Lee: yes, well, why don't we move to our very first story of the week? It's one that's unfolded very quickly since it happened. if you haven't seen the pictures, they are tragic and catastrophic. I'm talking, of course, about the natural disaster that's unfolded on the border between Tibet and Nepal. The death toll is rising drastically and very fast. It's not yet confirmed, but we know that really tragically, this is an area of the world that's frequented by both tourists and also people. Pilgrims. Annie Pullar: It's actually really hard to fathom the scale of what's unfolding there. And and as you alluded to, those pictures are just, I mean, it's it's your worst nightmare being caught in a disaster like this. But let's start with what we know so far. Apparently, a huge chunk of glacier actually broke away high in the Himalayas region on the border between Nepal and Tibet. And then that came crashing down into the valley below, which has obviously triggered a major landslide. We've seen a wall of mud, rock, and sort of glacier. Water flash flooding that's torn through the Rasua region, and literally within I think we can say seconds, it has wiped out entire communities. We've seen children on buses with like just a wall of water coming towards them, people swept up in an instant. and it's probably worth noting as well that there'd actually been no rain in this particular region for 24 hours beforehand, which is I think why so many people were caught off guard. I mean, can. can never prepare for something like this, but it really came out of the blue. Jodi Lee: Yeah, and As I touched on before, it's not just local communities that have been decimated and local lives that have been lost. This is an area that's really popular with tourists. Not so much with those tourists that go overseas to trek the Himalayas. They tend to go to sort of take a slightly different route through Nepal. But this is a trip that many people say is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Hindu pilgrims. A lot of them are on organized tours that travel through this region to visit sacred sites like Lake. Manasarava in Tibet, which apparently has huge cultural significance for members of the Hindu faith. So when this hit it caught, you know, trekking groups, but also those pilgrimage tours and local tour guides all at once. Annie Pullar: Jesus. I mean yeah, I mean my first reaction when I woke up in the morning when I heard Nepal, I instantly knew that Australians would be caught up in this because we see so many tourists going to that part of the world and Experiencing the beauty, obviously now it's just completely marred by tragedy. The official death toll, and I'm reluctant to say these numbers because we know that they're gonna change, but as it stands today on Friday, the death toll stands at about 390. The number of people missing across both countries, so Nepal and Tibet, is now nearing 1500. Penny Wong gave an update this morning saying 39 Australians are among the missing. That's including two young Australian boys. Aged 11 and 14, who were traveling with their family as part of one of these tour groups. 15 of them were also on another tour, a 14-day pilgrimage from Kathmandu to Mount Kalish. And the company running it apparently lost contact with the whole group yesterday morning. I think they'd only posted on social media some 24 hours before, obviously enjoying the tour that they were on. Jodi Lee: For anyone who hasn't seen the footage, it's probably worth describing it. It is just Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi Lee: like this fast-moving torrent of thick black sludge and water that just collects buildings. One of the shots from a CCTV camera shows all of these tourist buses parked in what looks like the open-air car park of a hotel. And it just floods through, it collects buses, it crushes the building itself. You can see people frantically running and trying to drive away, but obviously you can't outrun something like that. Annie Pullar: It's the it's also just the speed. Like it almost picked up this bridge and then the water just carries the bridge with it instantly. Like if you were in that situation, there would literally be nothing you could do to outrun what you were confronting. Jodi Lee: Yeah, and you can understand why initially people thought that this had been an earthquake. There was a seismic Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi Lee: reading that made it look like it was an earthquake. Annie Pullar: Yeah, well I think it was initially reported that it was a 4.4 magnitude earthquake. That that was sort of the headlines that I saw as this broke. But now it's believed, as we mentioned off the top, that it's actually been triggered by this glacial avalanche. So that this chunk of glacier, roughly, I think it was about 600 meters wide, slapped cleanly off this mountain more than 5,000 meters up, so above where these villages were hid, and then it's dropped nearly a kilometer down. Which has obviously triggered, you know, landslides, flash flooding, everything that comes with such a seismic sort of shift in the Himalayas. Jodi Lee: One researcher actually described it as looking like a bomb had gone off because it was that powerful and the fall, yeah, the fall literally like pulverize. Annie Pullar: That's ex That's exactly it. Jodi Lee: So what happens here, this this researcher explained was that the fall of that glacier, the chunk of glacier, pulverized the ice into a churning wall of water. So it melts as it comes down and it picks up debris. as it moves and it also gains momentum as it comes downhill and then it basically thunders down into that valley and it hit basically where the river narrows. So it funnels straight through villages and that major border crossing between Nepal and Tibet. Annie Pullar: Mm-hmm and and I mean putting it into scale and this I think will surprise no one but Nepal is already calling it the country's worst disaster since I think the earthquake that actually hit back in 2015, which killed close to 9,000 people. And you know, it's worth noting that that we may not know the death toll here for many days, many weeks, because rescuers are going to be having to try to gain entry into some of these areas, which no doubt are gonna be really hard to get into. Because I think they're also battling with potential landslides that might be triggered as a result of this one that we've seen. Jodi Lee: Yeah, exactly, those secondary kind of instances. Speaking of secondary instances, this is apparently the second time that this river has had an instance of flash flooding in just a year. So obviously so soon after the fact, the focus now is on finding and saving people and rescuing them and then on sanitization because this kind of flash flooding picks up, as I said before, debris, so everything is contaminated, and people are people really struggle. So the response now is very much on survival and and first aid and that humanitarian response. But the second Second to that is going to be why does this keep happening? And the you know, what I can't help Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: but think is is this climate change. Annie Pullar: Well, a hundred percent. We say that all of these people were caught off guard, but if you look at what scientists have actually been studying, there have been warnings about this exact sort of nature happening. apparently scientists studying the Himalayas have found that glaciers across the region are melting at this rapid rate. and these ice and rock avalanches are becoming kind of a sustained recognized hazard as the mountains warm. So, yes, I mean no one could have predicted something like this, but it seems to be a pattern that, you know, was on the radar o of of experts. Jodi Lee: Yeah. Just going back to the humanitarian response, I think it's we should probably note that a number of countries have really rallied together and are sending aid to Nepal and to Tibet. So Australia is among them. They've sent we've sent crisis staff to the region to help repatriate Australians. China's had an all-out rescue effort. Nepal's army has sent thousands of troops. The US has pledged aid too. So you know, the world is is bandying together to try and help. in the immediate aftermath. Annie Pullar: I think we're also just holding our breath to see how this plays out as well. You've got to think about all of these Australian families that are caught up in it. Obviously, some of them were on the tour group over there, but they also have relatives back here in Australia that haven't heard from anyone. So you can only imagine the agonizing weight that they face, basically trying to ascertain whether you know their loved ones are alive or whether they've survived. And it's worth noting there actually has been some pretty remarkable survival stories in all of this. Little babies plucked out of the mud and an older woman, I saw this incredible shot, she was sort of in the in the back of this almost like a trailer, and she just was covered head to toe in mud and she'd somehow been plucked from the rubble. So just an awful story. There's yeah, there's not much you can really say about it. Jodi Lee: No, and I think not to be pessimistic about it, but as is often the case in a natural disaster, the conditions really work against those rescue efforts. Like you speak about sheer mud. Annie Pullar: Mm-hmm. Jodi Lee: I was reading an account of one of the tour groups that had members on the ground and participants on the ground that they haven't been able to account for. And the owner of the tour group said he hopped in a helicopter and tried to fly into the region and land to try to find them because communication had been cut off. But there was actually nowhere safe for that helicopter to land because because everything had turned to sludge. So while everybody's obviously desperately hopeful and and working as hard as they can, the terrain certainly works against them in some respects. Annie Pullar: Yeah, plenty more to come on that story. I hate to stay on destruction and death, but should we move to our next story, which moves to a lighter note, but I think the world is literally in mourning and will be for some time. Jodi Lee: Yeah, and she's you know, one of those superstars that went by a single name. There's Madonna, there's Beyoncé, and then there was Dolly. Kylie, obviously, but the Prime Minister would never let us forget Kylie. there's Annie Pullar: Don't forget Kylie. Jodi Lee: Dolly and obviously one of those rare people who never needed a surname, but Dolly Parton died this week. she was the queen of country music and she was just eighty years old. Years young. Annie Pullar: So that obviously there was her nephew delivering the news to the world on Dolly Parton's Instagram. Amazing that she obviously had this entire thing planned before she passed. we knew that her death had come after a period of poor health. There had been signs along the way that she had been struggling, but in true Dolly fashion, I don't think she she fully put out to the world how real that struggle was. I think we all felt like Dolly Parton was going to. Live forever. What we didn't know was that she was actually battling cancer behind the scenes. We still don't know what sort of cancer she had. Her family put out a statement saying that it was very brief, it was a very private battle, and she died at a cancer center in Nashville, her hometown, surrounded by her loved ones. Jodi Lee: I think you touched on a really important point that we sort of assumed she'd live forever because she Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi Lee: was so famous to so many generations. She had this universal talent that was transcendental of time and age that I guess I never really stopped to consider that one day she'd be gone. But the other thing, I you know, since her passing, I have learnt so much about who she actually was because I never bothered to even think about it. And I think the woman behind the character is probably where we should go, 'cause I think it's most fascinating. Annie Pullar: Definitely. And I think, for us the reason we wanted to do the story is because in our opinion, Dolly leaves behind a legacy that very few artists in the world really have. She wasn't just a musician. She was an incredible businesswoman, a philanthropist, and we'll get into that soon. But let's go back to where it all started for her. She was apparently from a dirt poor family in Tennessee. She grew up in a cabin with no running water, no electricity, one of 12 children. And even as a little girl, Dolly was apparently convinced that she was going to hit the big leagues, that she was going to be a star and and honestly there was no false modesty about it. She made it really clear in every interview she delivered Exactly where she wanted to be and how she saw herself. And she performed as a child, she recorded music as a teenager. The day apparently she finished high school, she packed up the bag, she drove to Nashville. And really, I think that's where her career started and took off. She she did not stumble into fame, she went and found it. Jodi Lee: She went after it. But in stark contrast to that, she lived personally such a small town life in spite of her Hollywood fame. And I just, this is my favorite, one of my favorite parts about Dolly's story. So she was married for almost 59 years to a man that no one knew about. This guy by the name of Carl Dean, who was also from her home state of Tennessee. They met when she was 18, standing outside a laundromat. Annie Pullar: It's so good. Jodi Lee: and they got married two years later and they were married for almost fifty-nine years and he only passed away last year. So the best part was she had this massive Hollywood persona and this huge career and made hundreds of millions of dollars. He ran an asphalt paving business and wanted Annie Pullar: Ha ha Jodi Lee: nothing to do with fame. Annie Pullar: And never delivered an interview. Like never spoke in public. No. Jodi Lee: Didn't care too. No. Annie Pullar: Which is amazing when you consider, like, she literally couldn't leave the house without someone photographing her, ending up, you know, in in paparazzi tabloids. No one knew who the hell he was. So just a remarkable relationship. they actually chose not to have children, which is something I didn't know until this week. it apparently was quite a deliberate call. and I think strikingly modern we can call it that for a woman of her era, at a time where, you know, many. Women in the 80s, the 90s were expected to be having children from quite young ages, and she chose not to go down that path. So Dolly said that that decision apparently gave her the freedom to build the career that she did and to help other people's kids. Another thing I didn't know, she is Miley Cyrus's godmother. I didn't know. Jodi Lee: How could you not know that? She went on tour with Billy Ray Cyrus and when Yes, and then when they were pregnant with Miley, Billy Ray asked her to be Miley's godfather. Annie Pullar: Which explains, like, I was obsessed with Hannah Montana, and she obviously featured as Miley Cyrus's godmother on Hannah Montana. So I'm like, okay, it all clicks. I don't know how I didn't know this. but yeah, an incredible relationship. She was a mentor to her, she was a mum to her, and they they had this bond that, you know, very few do in the music industry. Jodi Lee: it's so true. Her image as well was so far from who she really was. One of the things that I found fascinating as I've we've been sort of looking under the hood is that she really lent into that ditzy blonde persona in spite of the fact that she was anything but. So obviously the world knew her as this like glitz and glam, the rhinestones, the fake boobs, lots of plastic surgery, the massive bleach blonde wig. And you remember she very famously said it costs a lot of money to look this cheap. So many Annie Pullar: So many good quotes. Jodi Lee: good one liners. but And the dumb blonde jokes never offended her. She leant right into them, in spite of the fact that she knew she wasn't dumb and she actually wasn't even really blonde. but she kinda knew what people saw when she walked into a room and instead of fighting it, she really used it to her advantage. And I respect that. Annie Pullar: Well I've been fixated on like every interview Dolly Partner has ever done, but I wanna play you this because I think this really encompasses exactly who Dolly was. Jodi Lee: She really never took herself too seriously. Also, how good is a twenty-something-year-old Barbara Walters? Annie Pullar: But that's the thing. No, she was I know the whole video, I'm like obsessed with it. But I think Point that I take from that is that she was always in on the joke. Like while people were laughing at her, the joke was on them because everything she did was so curated, so purposeful. She was also an incredible businesswoman. Like, I'm sorry, but she was a boss bitch. There's no doubt about it. in a in a genre dominated by men, you know, we're talking about the country music scene, she really was a trailblazer. she worked out very early on in her career that writing Songs was one thing, but owning them was where the power and the money was, and she really capitalized on that those decisions. Case in point, the song I Will Always Love You, a song that we all universally know and love. Jodi Lee: Yes. Annie Pullar: So it was actually written by Dolly Parton after she decided to leave her mentor at the time. Apparently, Elvis actually wanted to record it. His manager demanded half the publishing rights, and Dolly came out swinging and was like, I'm not gonna do that. And basically turned Elvis down. And then apparently she's later revealed that she actually cried over that decision and questioned whether it was the right one, but it definitely was. Jodi Lee: Then obviously it was because Whitney Houston recorded it in The Bodyguard and it was like one of the highest-selling singles of all time. So definitely not a bad move by Dolly. But who turns down Elvis? Annie Pullar: I mean, I know. Well, sh I feel like she could see, you know, she could see the success before it was in front of her. And that that really was her superpower. She honestly took country music mainstream, particularly in that female market, She always stayed really true to herself. Like if you listen to her hits, you know, Joelene, Nine to Five, how many times have I played that song? Islands in the Stream with Kenny Rogers. she then did movies and television shows, but the accent always stayed the same. There was always that signature twang, the rhinestones, the big hair, the bust. she just never lost sight of herself through fame. Jodi Lee: No, and she also never lost sight of her impoverished roots, her humble beginnings. This is where I was just so blown away. She was, as you said at the top, a huge philanthropist throughout her entire life and career. She founded something called the Imagination Library because her own father was apparently illiterate. He couldn't read or write. So that that organization has since given away 300 million free books to children across the world, not just in the US, including here in Australia actually. And during COVID, she gave like a million dollar donation to medical research into what then became the Moderna vaccine for COVID. So she supported like a really vast array of very important causes, largely quite privately. Annie Pullar: I think she's real proof of, you know, the concept put your money where your mouth is. Like she spoke of generosity and she embodied generosity. I mean, there's so many things we could say about Dolly Parton. I think for me, I I really appreciated that, you know, when you hear her in interviews, when you see her candidly, she almost has this softness, innocent-like quality about her. And I think often, in business at least, that can be misrepresented or misassociated with weakness. But she, I think, was really proof that those two things aren't the same. She could be this incredibly warm, kind, you know, beautiful woman, but at the very same time, she was ambivalent. ambitious, she was smart, she was always in control. And and I don't think those two things ever competed with each other with Dolly. you know, it was what made Dolly Parton Dolly Parton. And I just love that she really didn't give a flying hell about what people thought about her as well. Jodi Lee: Nah, she didn't. But she did give a thought to how she would be remembered. So you heard earlier, obviously, her nephew say that she had asked him to record this message after her passing. She also recorded a song in 2015 called My Place in History that she's locked away in a time capsule at Dollywood, her kind of home and amusement park theme Annie Pullar: Theme pop. Jodi Lee: park. Yeah, it's giving Michael Jackson's Neverland. but this song she recorded Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: in 2015 isn't due to be opened. Apparently, she locked it away with a DVD. and a cassette tape and a cassette player and a DVD player like a CD player in case those things don't exist in 2046 when it's when it's meant to be opened. But I also read that she's taught she did say in multiple interviews that she was really annoyed that she saved that song for 2046 because apparently she thinks it's a really big hit and she's frustrated that people have to wait too long so long to hear it. So we've got 20 years before we get some new Dolly Parton music. Annie Pullar: Seriously, always one step ahead and what's the bet, it actually is a hit. I mean, she, as we said, she's transcended so many generations. Whatever the next generation is in 2046 will probably be equally obsessed with Dolly Parton. But yeah, just an incredible woman, an Jodi Lee: Sorry Charlie. Annie Pullar: incredible legacy. We love you, Dolly. but should we move on to our next story? Jodi Lee: all right. Well that's moved. Yeah. Why don't you take the reins of this one, considering how passionate you are? Annie Pullar: Yeah, so I had to do quite a lot of convincing to get this one over the line, but it is honestly just too humorous to not delve into. All you really need to know is there's three key ingredients here: an Anglican church in Brisbane, OnlyFans, and a reality TV show on stand. So three worlds that I don't think we would ever see collide, yet here we are. and maybe I'll just start with the start. Basically, St. John's Anglican Church here in Brisbane is one of the most important sacred Anglican. Anglican landmarks, and it somehow found itself in the center of a very controversial stash over an OnlyFan series that was filmed in there a couple of months ago, a stan series. And basically it's been forced to defend questions around why they let an OnlyFan series film inside the church, what it was signing up for, and whether they were actually deceived in the process. Jodi Lee: Yeah, so the show is called Turned On Dirty Sexy Money. You might have seen it on TV. It follows highly successful OnlyFans creators, some of them who are making like millions of dollars a year on the platform. And they're pi they're women who have built these thriving X-rated businesses, I guess you could call it. So obviously we know that OnlyFans is enormous, but and one of the show's main actresses or participants, I guess this you'd call her because it's a reality show is obviously the UK OnlyFan star Lily Phillips. But they did record a scene inside the church and the church has since come out and had quite a lot to say about it. So why don't we delve into why it went viral? Annie Pullar: Well Let's pick up with Lily Phillips, because she's a really important part to this story. So, for those who don't know or are familiar with her, she went viral for sleeping with more than a hundred men in a day. She famously said that the only thing she regrets around that challenge, which she set for herself, is that due to logistical issues that messed up the time of day, not every man had the five minutes with her that were promised. So that sort of sets the scene of the woman that we're talking about. She reportedly makes More than $3 million a year. She has 36,000 paying subscribers on the OnlyFans platform. But there's this whole other side to Lily that's kind of created a lot of controversy as well. She's openly Christian. She's come out on social media saying that. She's spoken about her faith. She's copped a lot of heat over how she reconciles with being religious and also sort of, I guess, selling sex for her business. And in the series, she decides that she will. wants to, how can we put it, have a little bit of divine intervention and reconnect with her faith. Jodi Lee: Yes, so she basically takes members of the cast to this church in Brisbane, which as you've said is a very highly regarded, very important Anglican landmark. It's hosted former Prime Ministers like Kevin Rudd, Queensland's Governor General quite recently. So it's obviously I mean, not that you need to be an important church to be a sacred place, but it has had some pretty famous faces there and it's obviously very well known. I guess the big question is why did this Anglican church allow only fans stars and a reality television show about OnlyFans Stars to shoot there in the first place. Annie Pullar: Well that is the million dollar question and it's one that at this point no sides can seem to answer. But it's not exactly like this production crew just snuck into the cathedral. They came with massive Massive production gear, crews were on set. I mean, the women that this series actually follows were were in the cathedral at the time. They weren't exactly dressed in their Sunday best, so it was very clear what exactly was happening here. Even the dean of the cathedral, Dr. Peter Catt, appeared in the episode alongside Lily. He apparently sort of led her through some sort of reaffirmation of her faith. And he appeared not once, like literally ten times. So that's just a brief taste of how they interact with. Jodi Lee: Was that in it? Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: I've got to get Stan. I think so what's obviously being disp like there it obviously looks like he knows that he's being filmed. what he disputes is his understanding of where and how the footage would be used, like what it would become. but the series airs, like it streams for weeks and then only now this has blown up. The Archbishop of Brisbane sends a letter apologizing for the distress and anger caused by the cathedral appearing in this series, saying that he's shocked by the content, the nature of the show itself, and the intent of the programme. So, really, the big question for me is how could such an established organization be so naive? Annie Pullar: Well, apparently the Archbishop didn't know that the dean had given approval for this series to come in and film. So that that statement that he sent out was to the congregation where he was pretty much forced to defend the position that they were in. And he claims that the cathedral here was completely misled by the show's producers, that they thought or they were told that this was actually going to be some sort of documentary exploring faith and religion from the experience of of someone. Who has been excluded from the community as a sex worker. So here they are thinking that, you know, they're doing a solid. They're part of this really inclusive documentary. They're all coming together showing that, you know, that the church or the cathedral can support people who have been ostracized, if you can call it that. So yeah, that there's quite a few questions over whether they were deceived or whether this is a story that they're sort of just kind of going with to cover up what's happening. Yeah. Jodi Lee: So they claim it was kind of like a Sasha Baron Cohen Borat ambush, where they were told it would be one thing and actually it would be another. I don't know if I that that would make the dean of the church so naive and it just doesn't seem believable to me. And what's interesting Annie Pullar: Narrow. Jodi Lee: is that the production company called no less Mischief and Wonder, okay. Annie Pullar: Of course. Jodi Lee: Yeah, of course. the production company tells a very different story and they say the purpose of filming was made explicitly clear when they approached the dean of the church and that they had approval directly from the dean, obviously that's not in dispute. so basically the church is saying we were misled and the production company saying, No, you weren't. I don't know, like filming is a big deal, right? It's not you're you're not just Annie Pullar: Mm a hundred percent. Jodi Lee: agreeing to have a meeting with someone. You're agreeing for that meeting to be on camera. look. I sort can see how if they said, look, she is a sex worker, she's a passionate Christian, she would like to talk to you about her redemption journey. Obviously they're not going to discriminate against a a member of the community just because of the work that they do. You wouldn't Annie Pullar: No. Jodi Lee: assume the church would. So they would sit so I understand why he if maybe I can kind of understand that he thought that's all it would be. Annie Pullar: Well, I think yeah, but then the argument is all you have to do is Google Lily Phillips and and that tells you everything Jodi Lee: Well that's that. That's that. Annie Pullar: That tells you everything you need to know about the, you know, the woman at the center of it. I think the argument from the congregation side, the people that have their noses out of joint here is that, you know, we speak about OnlyFans and and the explicit nature of the content that comes from that platform. And it really represents kind of the exact opposite of what the church teaches, worshipers about sex. And Christianity treats sex as, you know, this sacred union only reserved for marriage. While OnlyFans sort of turns that into content which is performed and sold to strangers. So I think, you know, you can see why this has caused quite a kerfuffle. But then I guess there's a whole other side in this is, you know, if if a church is about, helping people heal and, confessing their sins or whatever you want to call it, then why wouldn't she be let in and why is this such a big problem? Jodi Lee: publicity stun and it was naive in my Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: view of the church not to do their due diligence and it was highly effective on behalf of the producers like it worked this is exactly what it was designed to do it get their Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: whole Lily Phillips's whole business is a bit is about shock value and most Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi Lee: of those only fans you know Bonnie Blue is the same their whole business their no there it's all about notoriety and causing people to be so shocked and stunned that they can't help but look. Or tune in Annie Pullar: Well Jodi Lee: and that's what this show is about. Annie Pullar: Yeah, and I think that's why it's caused so much anger is because a lot of people can see it sort of for what it is, which it is a stunt, and that the cathedral was sort of used as a pawn in the puzzle, something to be deliberately kind of outrageous and provocative to generate headlines and eyeballs. But yeah, what I also find funny is that the dean and the archbishop have just somehow fled from Brisbane and are both on leave. So so failing to answer any more questions around how this happened. Jodi Lee: Yeah, I mean I'm unsurprised. If you work in the church, this is about as bad as it gets, I would think. Or ver ver very near. As bad as it gets. Annie Pullar: yeah. I mean I don't really I'm not sure how you justify it, but one thing I can say is I'm actually pretty keen to watch this series now because it really has lifted the lid on the world of OnlyFans for me and maybe in another life it could have been a smart business decision. Jodi Lee: my god, you never cease to surprise Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: me, honestly. I'm like, who are you? Not for me personally, but each to their own, no judgment here. on that highly controversial and extremely surprising note, perhaps we wrap up today's episode. Annie Pullar: Sorry, Charlie. Jodi Lee: Yes, sorry to your loving monogamous partner. Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi Lee: but that is all we have time for this week. So as always, thank you so much for joining us on Covered.