705 episodes
- Are the protests filling Western streets truly spontaneous - or are some being engineered from above?
Investigative journalist Nate Friedman followed the money behind what looked like grassroots activism. He says he uncovered repeat organisers, nonprofit pass-throughs, more than $20 million connected to one little-known billionaire—and the same network appearing behind cause after cause.
Subscribe to his amazing channel: @natefriedman
In this rare long-form conversation, Nate reveals how he tracks the people and organisations behind mass demonstrations, why activists tried to block his street interviews and why he says major protests suddenly disappeared after federal investigators began asking questions.
He tells Andrew what shocked him most when he came to Britain, why New York could be a warning to the rest of the West, how social media helps charismatic radicals gain power—and why the funding trail keeps leading back to China.
But Andrew challenges him on the questions his critics will ask: Are ordinary protesters actually being paid? Can street interviews represent an entire community? Does editing distort the picture? And is Nate documenting a coordinated political machine—or only its loudest members?
The conversation becomes deeply personal as Nate recalls losing Charlie Kirk, encountering students who celebrated it and making a decision that changed his mission.
Watch to the end to discover the investigation Nate is building now—and why he says his goal is nothing less than saving the West.
CHAPTERS
00:00 The $20 Million Machine Behind the Protests
04:46 What “Paid Protesters” Actually Means
08:44 Why the Same Faces Keep Appearing
12:16 He Asked Hundreds—Their Answer Never Changed
16:01 What Britain’s Elites Refuse to See
20:57 Is It Already Too Late for Britain?
24:20 New York’s Radical Experiment Begins
29:29 How 25 Years Changed America Forever
32:30 Is the Point of No Return Getting Closer?
37:19 The Enclaves Quietly Taking Power
43:10 Charlie Kirk: “The Worst Day of My Life”
47:08 Why He Refused to Stop
#PaidProtesters #NateFriedman #FollowTheMoney #DarkMoney #InvestigativeJournalism #PoliticalInfluence #Heretics #AndrewGold
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices - Gene Simmons joins Andrew Gold for a completely unfiltered Heretics interview about KISS, celebrity politics, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Israel, fame, sex, money—and the first 29 years of his relationship with Shannon Tweed, which he now sees very differently.
The KISS co-founder and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer explains why he believes the public should ignore political advice from entertainers—including himself. He takes aim at celebrity activism, discusses Kylie Jenner, Javier Bardem, Bruce Springsteen and Billie Eilish, reveals why he abandoned the Democratic Party, and warns that Los Angeles and New York are in deep trouble.
But the most revealing moments are personal. Gene discusses being abandoned by his father, the terrifying childhood night that taught him to rely on himself, his extraordinary self-belief and why he says fame gave him permission to behave in ways an ordinary man never could.
He also addresses the stories about 4,800 women, admits how his behaviour affected Shannon and their children, and responds directly to an explosive accusation involving his late KISS bandmate Ace Frehley.
Along the way: Donald Trump, Mike Tyson, Margaret Thatcher, antisemitism, Israel, Islam, capitalism, the nuclear family, Gene’s infamous tongue—and how KISS became “Disney without the overhead,” selling everything from condoms to caskets.
This is Gene Simmons as few interviews capture him: funny, combative, candid and completely unfiltered.
Subscribe to Heretics for more fearless, long-form conversations with the world’s most fascinating people.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Gene Simmons Arrives—and Asks Why We’re in “the Ghetto”
2:20 “Ignore Celebrities”: Kylie Jenner & Javier Bardem
6:34 His Father Abandoned Him: The Poverty That Shaped Gene
10:56 Donald Trump, Democracy & Britain’s “Flawed” System
15:09 Why Gene Abandoned the Democrats—LA & New York in Trouble
19:22 Trans Politics, the Nuclear Family & Why Musicians Should Shut Up
23:31 Billie Eilish’s “Stolen Land” Claim—Then Religion Gets Explosive
29:07 Hollywood’s Israel Problem & 6,000 Years of Antisemitism
33:35 Judaism, Humanism & Why Gene Simmons Loves Himself
37:15 The Childhood Night That Changed Him—and Mike Tyson’s Secret
41:31 “Stop Complaining”: Gene’s Brutal Formula for Success
46:25 The Infamous Tongue, 4,800 Women & Sex Addiction
52:02 “Didn’t It Hurt Shannon?”—His 29-Year Reckoning
57:16 Gene Simmons Answers Ace Frehley’s Explosive Accusation
1:01:43 Armie Hammer, Islam, Extremism & Britain’s Grooming Gangs
1:05:39 Jesus, Galileo & the Heretics Gene Simmons Admires
#GeneSimmons #KISS #Heretics #AndrewGold #RockAndRoll
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices - Vanessa Feltz has spent more than thirty years at the heart of British television. I built Heretics outside it. We began by agreeing that television had become sanitised. Within minutes, she was asking whether I was ashamed of myself.
What follows is a collision between two very different ideas of public conversation: one prioritises care and responsibility; the other prioritises bluntness and freedom. You decide which one the future belongs to.
Sub to her new show here: https://www.youtube.com/@VanessaFeltzYouTube
Following the sudden end of her Channel 5 programme, Vanessa reveals how Paramount pulled the plug, why terrestrial television is losing its audience and what decades in British broadcasting taught her about censorship, controversy and the shrinking space for unscripted opinions.
But the agreement doesn’t last.
A throwaway remark about Loose Women becomes an accusation of misogyny and ageism. Vanessa explains why she deplores my decision to interview Katie Hopkins, questions whether controversial figures deserve a platform and reveals whether she would invite Woody Allen into her home.
Then, after Vanessa asks what I have said that made me unacceptable to mainstream television, the interview takes its most dramatic turn. We clash over transgender identity, pronouns, detransition, compelled speech and whether genuine compassion means affirming somebody’s identity—or being willing to tell them something they do not want to hear.
At one point, Vanessa calls me “nasty”. Shortly afterwards, she announces that she has lost the will to live.
But the arguments are only half the story. Vanessa also speaks with startling honesty about growing up with parents who rarely expressed love, being made to feel grateful to any man who chose her and why she has never sustained a successful relationship.
She opens up about the cruelty she experienced over her weight, starving and dehydrating herself before televised weigh-ins on Celebrity Fit Club, the gastric band that became embedded in her liver and why she wishes Mounjaro and Wegovy had existed before she underwent gastric bypass surgery.
There are also extraordinary stories involving Madonna, Katie Price, Woody Harrelson, Jeff Goldblum, The Big Breakfast and the famous guests who behaved very strangely after climbing into bed with Vanessa.
Was Vanessa defending kindness and responsibility—or the instincts that made mainstream television frightened of real conversation? Was I defending honesty and free expression—or simply being provocative for its own sake?
Watch until the end and decide for yourself. The way the conversation concludes may surprise you.
Subscribe to Heretics for long-form conversations in which insiders, survivors and dissidents reveal the hidden rules of powerful people and institutions—and how those rules affect you.
CHAPTERS
0:00 “Are you ashamed of yourself?”
3:54 Why mainstream television is dying
7:59 One joke turns the interview against Andrew
12:32 Is offensiveness ever “just a joke”?
18:15 The parents who rarely expressed love
21:59 Why Vanessa always needed to be chosen
25:09 Why Vanessa deplores Katie Hopkins
30:48 Vanessa discovers she was voted one of Britain’s worst people
35:18 How she avoided the internet until 2020
38:27 “What have you said?” The gender clash begins
42:36 What does it really mean to be a woman?
46:18 “You’re just being nasty”
50:10 When “just be kind” stops being simple
55:40 The weight-loss operation that went horribly wrong
59:03 Starving herself before a televised weigh-in
1:03:21 Why one slice of cake changes everything
1:07:19 Vanessa’s YouTube reinvention—and the stars in her bed
#VanessaFeltz #Heretics #AndrewGold #FreeSpeech #BritishTV
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Everybody Loves Raymond Star: I Had to Join Hollywood’s Secret Network - Patricia Heaton
24/08/2026 | 1h 10 mins.Patricia Heaton says Hollywood became so hostile to dissent that she helped build a private network of 2,000–3,000 insiders - before the IRS asked for its members’ names.
In this Heretics interview, the Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle star tells Andrew Gold why “Hollywood’s dead”—and what changed inside its comedy writers’ rooms. Patricia reveals how a small gathering involving Gary Sinise, Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight and Ben Shapiro grew into Friends of Abe, Hollywood’s secret community for conservatives, libertarians and independent thinkers.
Follow Patricia on X here: https://x.com/PatriciaHeaton
And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patriciaheaton
Andrew first heard Patricia Heaton discuss Hollywood’s writers’ rooms with Dave Rubin on The Rubin Report. Here, they go further: from jokes being rejected as offensive and diversity requirements affecting hiring to Patricia’s Catholic faith, her pro-life beliefs and the people who allegedly refused to work with her.
Patricia also challenges Andrew’s atheism before they debate October 7, Israel, antisemitism, Hollywood activism, radical Islam, immigration and the political future of America.
Can Hollywood ever produce another timeless sitcom like Everybody Loves Raymond—or has fear permanently changed comedy?
Subscribe to Heretics for more honest conversations with the insiders, survivors and dissidents challenging powerful institutions.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Hollywood’s secret club: the explosive preview
1:06 Patricia Heaton says “Hollywood’s dead”
6:40 Why classic comedy couldn’t be made today
9:54 The joke young writers called “homophobic”
14:46 Diversity rules inside Hollywood writers’ rooms
19:04 Being Catholic and pro-life in Hollywood
23:03 Friends of Abe: Hollywood’s secret conservative club
26:06 3,000 members, IRS scrutiny and career backlash
32:06 Patricia Heaton challenges Andrew’s atheism
38:00 October 7 and Hollywood’s silence
42:00 Did the West learn the wrong lesson from 9/11?
45:48 Why is Israel held to a different standard?
49:58 Andrew’s terrifying Jerusalem chase
53:04 Is activism Hollywood’s latest status symbol?
56:04 From sitcom fame to a warning about freedom
59:25 Christianity, Islamism and closed communities
1:02:25 Mamdani, political violence and the far left
1:05:38 Can America reverse course?
#PatriciaHeaton #EverybodyLovesRaymond #TheMiddle #Hollywood #Heretics
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices- Was Charles Manson merely a cult leader—or used the CIA’s MKUltra mind-control program?
Investigative journalist Tom O’Neill spent 20 years examining Charles Manson, the Manson Family and the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. His acclaimed book, CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, challenged the accepted Helter Skelter story. In 2026, Tom was called to testify before the United States Congress about MKUltra and the files he uncovered.
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Get Tom O'Neill's book Chaos: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chaos-Truth-Behind-Manson-Murders/dp/1786090627
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Tom explains why Manson repeatedly escaped prison despite serious parole violations—and reveals the disturbing connections between Manson, the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and psychiatrist Louis “Jolly” West, a secret CIA contractor involved in LSD, hypnosis and mind-control experiments.
We discuss:
• Whether Charles Manson was a CIA asset, informant or unwitting experimental subject
• The original MKUltra documents Tom discovered after “turning every page”
• Sidney Gottlieb, Jolly West and attempts to replace real memories with false ones
• Evidence that the CIA gave Congress altered information about MKUltra
• How Manson used LSD, hypnosis and psychological conditioning on his followers
• Whether MKUltra succeeded—and whether similar programs could still exist today
• What a congressional staffer allegedly told Tom about UFOs, UAPs, recovered crafts and recovered beings
• Tom’s night inside Marilyn Manson’s house
• Private dinners with Peter Thiel
• Joe Rogan, Kamala Harris and the political cost of refusing difficult conversations
Tom is careful to distinguish between what the documents prove and what remains an extraordinary—but increasingly difficult to dismiss—theory.
Do you believe Manson was deliberately used, experimented on, or simply protected as an informant? Let us know below.
Subscribe to Heretics for investigations into cults, government secrets, institutional power, hidden history and the stories powerful people would rather you ignored.
#CharlesManson #MKUltra #CIA
Chapters:
0:00 Congress Reopens MKUltra
7:50 The Files That Survived
13:24 Was Manson a CIA Experiment?
20:34 Someone Needed Manson Free
27:55 How Manson Programmed His Followers
31:18 Replacing Real Memories With Fake Ones
35:35 Did MKUltra Ever Stop?
40:06 Secrets Hidden From Presidents
41:51 What Congress Really Knows About UFOs
45:35 Recovered Crafts and Beings
47:14 Secrets That Require Therapy
48:44 Could Aliens Really Reach Earth?
50:42 Why Democrats Skipped the Hearing
52:15 Psychic Spies and Uri Geller
55:31 Inside Marilyn Manson’s House
59:07 The Tape Too Dangerous for the Phone
1:02:01 Marilyn Manson’s Taylor Swift Obsession
1:05:17 Dinner at Peter Thiel’s House
1:11:02 Kamala Harris’s Joe Rogan Mistake
#CharlesManson #TrueCrime #Conspiracy #CIA #MKUltra #MansonFamily #DarkHistory #HistoryExposed #Heretics #AndrewGold
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Journalist Andrew Gold talks to everyone from cult defectors and politicians to mainstream celebrities - people who’ve challenged the expected script and lived with the consequences.
Guests include Robbie Williams, Rob Schneider, Frankie Muniz, Katie Price, Evan Rachel Wood, Paul Gascogine, Chris Packham, Chris Williamson, David Baddiel, Richard Dawkins, Bonnie Blue, and former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss.
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