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The Current Transcript for August 17, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We did rename him Justice, he was called Shadow and it just did not seem to fit him.

LAURA LYNCH: But now that horse has been labeled a crusader for justice; justice for animals that is. Justice the horse is suing his former owner for neglect. And that raises the debate once again about whether animals have rights including the right to sue. First up, we'll head to Oregon where Justice awaits his day in court. After that, resiliency in the wake of unimaginable trauma.

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You get into this moment where a certain smell like cologne or food, something that he has made it just like has a heart wrenching feeling in your heart.

LL: Michelle Knight was kidnapped and imprisoned for more than a decade then rescued along with two other women. Five years on she's still haunted by what happened in the basement of a house in Cleveland. But she has also rebuild her life, found love, and happiness and she'll be my guest in half an hour. After that...

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He was arrested twice. Escaped twice under gunfire, and then he was bit by Pit viper and he almost died. I mean he was unconscious essentially three weeks and couldn't walk for three months.

LL: Bruno Manser was more than an adventurer. He became so enamored of the people who lived in Borneo that he in essence became one of them; wearing a loincloth, carrying a spear, and then risking his life to fight against commercial logging there. And he wasn't the only westerner drawn to the people and the culture of the island. We will replay my interview with Carl Hoffman about his book The Last Wild Man of Borneo, in an hour. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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Justice the horse, a victim of neglect, is taking his former owner to court

Guests: Sarah Hanneken, Richard Epstein, Camille Labchuk

SOUNDCLIP

PIERS MORGAN: What I want to know is you fought this battle on behalf of a monkey, right? Does the monkey now know what has happened? Has anybody had that conversation with the monkey? Because you're treating the monkey like a human being. So have you gone up to him and gone [imitating monkey sound]. Does he understand that means we've fought a lengthy-very expensive battle because we got nothing better to do all day?

LL: Broadcaster Piers Morgan might not take the issue of animal rights particularly seriously, but 'PETA' or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals did. They were suing a photographer and his publishing company, arguing that an Indonesian monkey should have ownership of the selfies he took. The judge didn't agree, but the case raised interesting questions about animal rights; questions that are still being argued in the courts today. The latest case involves an 8-year-old horse aptly named Justice. When the horse was rescued from his home in Washington County, Oregon he was: 300 pounds underweight, covered with lice, and had genitals so frostbitten they may have to be amputated. Now Justice is suing his former owner for damages related to his pain and suffering. Yes the horse is suing his former owner. Sarah Hanneken is an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund and one of the lawyers representing Justice the horse. She is in Portland, Oregon. Hello.

SARAH HANNEKEN: Hello.

LL: Now you heard Piers Morgan in that clip berating the director of PETA for arguing that a monkey should have copyright ownership. What's your response?

SARAH HANNEKEN: Well it is reasonable or perhaps the better word is 'expected' for people to find the notion of animals as plaintiffs to be quite shocking. But the reality is that while they might not have copyright interests, animals do have interests of their own and those interests we already recognize ought to be protected.

LL: Okay so then tell me about Justice the horse. His case. What is it that you are arguing?

SARAH HANNEKEN: Justice as you mentioned is the victim of severe neglect and as a result of neglect he has sustained permanent injuries that will require extensive medical care for the remainder of his life. And we feel that Justice has legally protected interests' in Oregon that's somewhat in-disputed because he is protected by the anti-cruelty law here and some other legal precedent. If you put them together it suggests that Justice should be able to recoup the costs of future care so that whoever ends up adopting him can afford to provide him with the care that he needs.

LL: Well you already mentioned this; there are laws in place to protect animals from acts of cruelty, why isn't that enough?

SARAH HANNEKEN: Well so by way of example in Justice's case his former owner pled guilty to criminal animal neglect and as part of her sentence she was ordered to pay a few thousand dollars in restitution; I think about three thousand dollars to cover the cost of Justice's medical care for the period of a just a few months and as you can imagine that amount given the extent of Justice's injuries was very very inadequate. And as I mentioned he remains wholly uncompensated.

LL: Then what sort of pushback are you expecting to your case?

SARAH HANNEKEN: Well the defendant just this week filed a motion to dismiss which is the procedural answer that we expected. And that requested the court to toss the case she argues that number one, animals don't have standing, which is a common refrain you'll hear from detractors of efforts such as Justice's. And then also that's just trying to argue against the merits of Justice's substantive case which is negligence.

LL: Well I mean there is a point there isn't there? Because Justice may be your client but Justice can't exactly give you instructions on how he wants his case fought.

SARAH HANNEKEN: That's absolutely right. But this concept is not new at all in courts. We very frequently see plaintiffs who cannot speak for themselves. Cannot consult with their attorneys. So for instance young children or human beings who have been so badly injured that they are in a coma and yet they have the right to sue and do sue through a guardian or other individual who represent their interests.

LL: Now courts have always been very reluctant to advance or expand this idea of animal rights. One of the reasons is forgive the phrase a stampede of animal litigation that might follow. Do you see that as a potential problem?

SARAH HANNEKEN: I do not just because of the practical roadblocks, well not roadblocks, but just practical considerations that you would need to have in place in order for an animal to bring a lawsuit. So I just mentioned that well first of all they need to have a guardian to communicate with the attorneys and the court to represent their interests. And you know only animals that have guardians would be able to sue therefore. And also only animals protected under the anti-cruelty laws of a state would have standing to sue under the theory that justice is [inaudible]. So the floodgates argument is really misplaced and just a distracter.

LL: So when's the last time you saw your client? How is he doing?

SARAH HANNEKEN: I saw Justice in May of this year. And I'm happy to say he is doing much better. He has regained a healthy weight and he is learning to socialize with other horses and humans. But he still has a long road of recovery ahead of him.

LL: So how hopeful are you then that you can get justice for Justice?

SARAH HANNEKEN: Well we are very confident in the soundness of the legal theory that we're presenting. And so it just is going to be a matter of whether the courts in Oregon are ready to accept that animals have interests and that the laws are sufficient to protect them if they will accept these theories.

LL: Alright Sarah Hanneken thank you.

SARAH HANNEKEN: Thank you.

LL: Sarah Hanneken is an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. She is in Portland, Oregon. Well Justice's case makes it clear that animals can suffer and be in pain. But should that give them the same legal rights as humans? My next guest says in most cases the answer is no. Richard Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. And he joins me from Chicago. Hello.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Good to talk to you.

LL: What's your reaction to what you just heard from Sarah Hanneken?

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Well I agreed with your questions than I did with her answers. There's no question that this is a case of cruelty and the only issue you have to ask are two: one, in cases of cruelty does the state bring the action in order to punish and to get restitution or is that given to a private party? And the second question is what's the amount of money that's going to be provided? And you do not have to talk about larger questions of animal rights to answer that issue. What you have to do is to consult the question, the statute, and that becomes I think a legislative decision. But if you make the claim into one about animal rights then other things follow; why do these animals need guardians at all? There are lots of horses out there which have lived very well in the state of nature. And so in the next case can somebody sue and say any horse that's owned by any person is entitled to freedom just so any [inaudible] is not going to be owned. And so what you now say is that animal ownership is akin to slavery. And so therefore every animal that we know which is tied to the horse or the plow or whatever it is it's going to be out. And so the theory about animal rights is dangerous not because of an attractive case which is covered by existing law but because its implications are so much broader in terms of the way in which the situation works. Take another thing suppose there's a field on which animals have run then somebody decides to fence it in; these animals have right, they've used the field so it seems now that you cannot fence it in because of animals have rights they could have property claims just the same as human beings can. And they could have those property claims even if they can't talk and even if they can't vote.

LL: I understand what you're saying though about the legislation being the arena for this, but in this case the state did intervene and they found this woman guilty. But the compensation for the horse wasn't enough apparently to take care of the horse's needs in the future so if the state can't provide the remedy shouldn't the client, the horse, the animal, or someone representing him be able to step in and demand more?

RICHARD EPSTEIN: I think the answer to that question is probably no. The way in which this would normally be done is if there's a penalty, you would say that the statute quote occupies the field [inaudible] private right of action. This has been a question that has arisen from the beginning of time in which it turns out you have an obstruction on the road and somebody has slowed down and the question is you removed the obstruction and you find the person, can an individual whose delays have been more costly sue under that circumstance? The answer to that question has always been no. And so it's always a question of interpretation. And if the statute is quiet about it you may be able to draw an inference so in this case it's not quite about it because it provided compensation. If nothing had been said about compensation oddly enough the case for this particular claim would be stronger. To put it in other terms statutory construction dominates this case and if the statute makes it clear that a private right of action is going to cover all future damages, that's the end of that. You win. And if it says something else that you can't get all future damages. You lose. In this case the statute is kind of quiet about the issue and the usual rule under those circumstances would be very reluctant to infer a private right of action.

LL: Can I ask you something more basic about this? Why don't animals have the capacity to have rights in your view?

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Well I mean because they don't have the capacity of cognition. If you create animals having rights you then have to ask the way the world is going to look and they will now have rights to refuse ownership. They're also going to have to have rights against other sorts of animals. So if a monkey says 'please Mr. chimpanzee don't eat me'; and somebody is going to have to enforce that. The simple difference is that all human beings are part of a species and what Sarah said is true but in some sense frightful. Yes there are many human beings who do not have the capacity to defend themselves because they're too young or they're feeble and so forth. We give them guardians. There are many advocates of animal rights who go in the opposite direction and said I'd rather protect the fully sentient animal than a decrepit human being. And there are some people who go so far as to say that we don't even allow their parents to support them. So I don't think cognition is the dominant issue, I think the dominant issue is whether they are or not humans. And so this gets denounced as a form of speciesism. But if you actually talk to people who are in the field and for example say to a mother, oh you can't defend your retarded child in any way shape or form because it's not sentient, better defend some dog randomly; you're going to get a palace revolution on your hands. And so the question really is, let's put it the other way, if animals could talk to human beings and interchange, any animal at any time, it would be fine. Animals do communicate. They have tremendously complicated psychologies but at no point do they have the capacity for language to ask the simple sentence.

LL: We have under a minute left but I want to ask you this. There have been similar cases, the monkey selfie case for one, and there has been a ban put on boiling lobsters in Switzerland because they feel pain. Which way is the wind blowing when it comes to giving animals human like rights?

RICHARD EPSTEIN: I think on copyright issues it's going to go in the opposite direction. Carlos Bea, a friend of mine wrote the opinion. David Schwartz, a friend of mine argued the case. But I don't think that's going very far. I think the lobster thing is really going to go; the cruelty stuff I think is going to take off in a greater extent.

LL: So you think the rights are going to expand for animals when it comes to cruelty?

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Well I think protection is going expand for animals. And that's certainly going to happen with medical experimentation. Chimpanzees and the like. It already has happened. In part it happens because you have other techniques to do the medical research. On the lobsters stuff, I think is actually a much harder case because if there's no other way to cook them there's going to be a lot of pushback. They tried this with liver extracts in the United States for [inaudible] and they wanted to ban it because of the cruelty and the way in which it was collected. And the bans eventually collapsed. So I think on the food side probably not. On the medical experiment, the experimentation side probably you'll see something in place.

LL: We will leave it there. Thank you very much.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: My pleasure.

LL: Richard Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. And we reached him in Chicago. Well Canadian animal rights lawyers and advocates are following the case of Justice the horse. Camille Labchuk is the executive director of Animal Justice and an animal rights lawyer. And she is in our Ottawa studio. Hello.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Good morning.

LL: I want to get your reaction to what you just heard from Richard Epstein.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Well you know I think we've always heard hypothetical ‘sky is falling’ scenarios any time people talked about expanding rights for marginalized groups. You know we heard this when we talked about giving women the right to vote and civil rights to more people and having a more just society.

LL: But those are sentient beings.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Animals are sentient beings as well. In fact this is actually recognized explicitly in the law now in Quebec. The European Union. New Zealand as well. And even if it doesn't say in our law that animals are sentient beings, we know this because we have animal cruelty laws and we wouldn't have those laws unless we recognize them as sentient.

LL: So what are your thoughts on this specific case with Justice suing his former owner?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: I think this is actually a really reasonable case in a small but important way to advance animals status under the law. Essentially justice has these health problems that are direct result of a criminal act and the victim of a hit and run crime can sue for damages for the psychological and physical trauma that they endured. So why shouldn't Justice have that same right? Why should his abuser get away with it just because he's a horse?

LL: Is there ever been a case like this in Canada?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: We've seen something that came somewhat close. The case of Lucy the Elephant; she's confined in solitary confinement actually in the Edmonton Zoo. She's the world's northernmost elephant. And the court of appeal was presented with a case where some animal advocates and a non-profit group went there and asked for a remedy. They said that her right through being violated because the protections that she was do under Alberta's provincial animal protection laws were not being met in her case and she was suffering. And the Court of Appeal shot it down and they said that it wasn't appropriate for humans to bring this case. But the Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of Appeals. A very influential judge; she dissented and she said that it may well soon be time for an animal to have standing on his or her own to go to court. She said that no animal has yet been granted standing in Canada but in my view it's only a matter of time before that happens.

LL: Is there any other case coming up through the courts that would carry on that challenge?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Animal rights lawyers are always looking for these cases. Sometimes it's about finding the right set of facts to advance a progressive legal doctrine. And I do think that we will get there someday.

LL: So yes because you mentioned that hers was a dissent. So what is the state of Canadian law?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: And oftentimes what happens is a dissent will be adopted next time around by the majority opinion. So this could go very well. But unfortunately Canada right now has some of the worst animal cruelty laws in the western world and a very very poor regulatory regime protecting animals. So there's no federal laws for animals on zoos or firms or laboratories. No federal inspectors.

LL: But there are provincial authorities that are protecting animals.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: That's right, but there's no national consistency and we think the government has abdicated those responsibilities. The few laws that do exist are ineffectively enforced oftentimes because the state doesn't devote very many resources to enforcing them.

LL: Well wouldn't that be a vast amount of resources if you wanted to look after the welfare of every animal in the country?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: I mean we already do devote some resources to it, so what's the barrier to really investing in this area?

LL: Money.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Yeah well I think that we're moving forward as a society and we're seeing that animals are more and more sentient. We're understanding to a greater degree that they have moral agency and capacity for pain and for suffering. And when we recognize this we have to act on it. And you know that's why I say that the few protections that animals do have should be enforced by the state. But animals should have that right like Justice to go and enforce them themselves too.

LL: Do you have any sense of whether Canadian views on whether animals should have rights are changing?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: I think they are hugely, we're seeing the legal landscape not just in Canada but changing around the world. As I mentioned animals are now recognized in Quebec Civil Code as being sentient. Some U.S. states now include recognition of animals best interests and pet custody cases when couples divorce. In Canada we've got bills in the Senate right now to ban keeping cetaceans in the tiny tanks in captivity, that's whales and dolphins. The province of Ontario has already banned keeping orcas. So this is happening and the world is changing around us.

LL: But all of those are different than an animal having rights to sue.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: They're actually you know really for affording animals protection. Giving them the right to sue, to enforce those protections is really a small reasonable next step for that.

LL: Well listen there are a lot of people out there listening today who probably think that the idea of a horse as a plaintiff is ridiculous. So here's your chance. Make the case to them.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Well look Justice suffers health problems that were a direct result of a criminal act. He requires care for the rest of his life because his former owners starved him and let him get painful frostbite. So the question is why should his abuser get away with that and not have to pay just because he's a horse? Why should a non-profit horse sanctuary have to fundraise to pay for his care and right the wrong that his former owner did? I think when you look at it from that perspective it's a really reasonable change to make and that's something that he deserves.

LL: And what about the legislature, do they not have a role in trying to make this remedy come about?

CAMILLE LABCHUK: You know our legislatures have already said that animals do deserve protection. So the next step is just giving them the right to enforce those protections. In Oregon there's some particular things there where animals have already been recognized as victims of crimes. They've been recognized as sentient beings. So it's really not a huge shift at all.

LL: We will have to leave it there. Camille Labchuk thank you.

CAMILLE LABCHUK: Thank you.

LL: Camille Labchuk is the executive director of Animal Justice and an animal rights lawyers. She was in our Ottawa studio. The CBC News is next. Then, it's been more than five years since Michelle Knight was released from the house in Cleveland where Ariel Castro held her captive for a decade. She has changed her name. Found new love. But the memories remain. I'll talk to her about the small things that can still take her back to that time in captivity. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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From a house of horrors to a happy ending: Cleveland kidnapping survivor finds love

Guests: Lily Rose Lee (Michelle Knight)

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to this summer edition of The Current. Still to come, my conversation with author Carl Hoffman about westerners so drawn to the jungles of Borneo that they live like the locals: loincloth, blow darts, snakes, and all. But first, learning from a nightmare closer to home. And a warning this story deals with a very disturbing crime which may not be suitable for young listeners.

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VOICE 1: Help me I'm Amanda Berry.

VOICE 2: Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?

VOICE 1: Police.

VOICE 2: Okay and what's going on there?

VOICE 1: I've been kidnapped. And I've been missing for over 10 years. And I'm here and I'm free now.

VOICE 2: Okay. And what's your address?

VOICE 1: 2207 Seymour Avenue.

VOICE 2: 2207 Seymour? It looks like you're calling me from 2210.

VOICE 1: Huh?

VOICE 2: Looks like you're calling me from 2210.

VOICE 1: I can't hear you.

VOICE 2: It looks like you're calling me from 2210.

VOICE 1: I'm across the street. I'm using their phone.

VOICE 2: Okay stay there with those neighbours. Talk to the police when they get there.

VOICE 1: Okay. Hello?

VOICE 2: Yeah talk to the police when they get there.

VOICE 1: Okay are they on their way right now?

VOICE 2: We're going to send them as soon as we get a car open. Alright we're sending them okay.

VOICE 1: Okay.

VOICE 2: Who is the guy who went out?

VOICE 1: His name is Ariel Castro.

LL: And with that 9-1-1 phone call in May, 2013 to Cleveland Police more than a decade of horror ended for three young female captives. The length and trauma of their ordeal seems incomprehensible. Michelle Knight was the first to be abducted by Ariel Castro. She told her story in her first book Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, A Life Reclaimed - A Memoir of the Cleveland kidnappings. She spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in May of 2014 about those harrowing years. We're going to replay that interview and then I will speak with Michelle Knight, who now goes by the name Lily Rose Lee to get an update on her life today. And just a warning again this is a very disturbing story and it's probably not suitable for younger listeners. Anna Maria began the interview by asking her what went through her mind hearing that desperate call from Amanda Berry to Cleveland Police.

LILY ROSE LEE: A lot of emotions. It saddens me that you know the police officer didn't like ask her was there anybody else or like try to direct attention to what she was trying to say because she was trying to say you know you need somebody right now. And what the police officer should have said is why do we need right now? Is there any you know, what's the reasons?

AMT: Because of course at the time you were still stuck in that house when she made that call.

LILY ROSE LEE: And she knew that you know if he came back something bad will happen.

AMT: Let's go back before that happened, what was your home life like when you were growing up?

LILY ROSE LEE: Oh it was a traumatic past. There was a lot of abuse: sexual, physical, emotional. Too much problems in the household. I was poor. Didn't have very much money. I basically, it is kind of like living on the streets but not really, but you're in a house.

AMT: At one point you were living in a car with your siblings and your parents.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes I was.

AMT: You were a young mom. Tell me about Joey.

LILY ROSE LEE: Joey was the light of my life. When I had him he opened up my eyes and my world to a better place because at that time I didn't want to live. I wanted to die. And he gave me the reason worth living.

AMT: How old were you when you gave birth to Joey?

LILY ROSE LEE: 18.

AMT: And social services took him away. Why? What happened?

LILY ROSE LEE: One of my family members which is my mom and had a boyfriend. And he decided to be stupid. And one day he came home and he was drunk. He was high. He was really messed up. And he decided that he was going to take it out on my son.

AMT: And Joey got a broken knee or something. And when he went to the hospital they started to ask questions.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yeah.

AMT: But until that point you were looking after him and things were fine with you and Joey.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yeah. Everything was going good until that incident happened.

AMT: Well in fact it was your attempt to go to a social services hearing that began this terrible series of events. Tell us about the day that Ariel Castro kidnapped you. How did that happen?

LILY ROSE LEE: I was walking down the street and I was trying to find the place but I didn't find it. So I walked back home, closer to home, you know because I lived on [inaudible] Avenue at that time. So I walked to the Family Dollar and I see the lady that worked for social services so I asked her do you know where this place is? She was like I don't recall, I don't know where that place is. And I was like maybe they gave me the wrong directions. So the dude that walks in I kind of recognize him because he's my friend father. So I'm like okay I could probably trust him you know. He seems like a good person. And he says I know where that place is at. So I get in the car and one thing led to another. I was trapped.

AMT: And he took you to his house instead.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

AMT: What did he say was going to happen to you?

LILY ROSE LEE: He told me that either I'll go home or I'll die. It was up to me. I had the choice to live or die in his house.

AMT: He basically took you into that house and then he started immediately abusing you. Torturing you. Sexually assaulting you.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yeah.

AMT: He would taunt you. He told you no one was looking for you, was that true?

LILY ROSE LEE: No one was looking for me. My mother supposedly started looking but she didn't come back. She didn't go through with it. She didn't keep on going with it. So they thought that it was just you know a runaway. So they took me off and they never looked for me.

AMT: There were no posters?

LILY ROSE LEE: None.

AMT: And when he got you in that house you weren't allowed outside?

LILY ROSE LEE: Not at first. It was later on in the years that I was allowed to go outside with him because I'd never been on TV so he figured well who cares? Nobody ain't looking for me. So they wouldn't notice or recognize anything.

AMT: You know when I read that that no one was looking for you I was so upset for you. What did you think, when he would taunt you with that, what would you think?

LILY ROSE LEE: It would bring me down but I would build myself back up so he won't intimidate me. See that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to break me. He wanted to make sure that I was fully broken, and that's something that he couldn't do.

AMT: And in your case this man went to work every day.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

AMT: He had his friends over every Saturday night.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yup. He was living like a double life. He had his life behind closed doors, and he had his family.

AMT: Where would you be when other people came into the house?

LILY ROSE LEE: Locked up in a room and before anybody came over he would tell us if you do or say anything to cause me to hurt people downstairs that I'll kill you.

AMT: He had a gun too.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes. And with me I didn't want nobody else to get hurt so I didn't really say anything or do anything that would hurt other people.

AMT: Well you talk about nobody else it was because you weren't alone. At one point Amanda Berry was kidnapped.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

AMT: What was your relationship like with her?

LILY ROSE LEE: It was alright. Like I said some friendships does not you know go anywhere but we were cool people.

AMT: And she was also kept captive. You weren't necessarily kept together though.

LILY ROSE LEE: No we wasn't kept together that's the reason why our friendship was a little you know separate. You know because we didn't have time to talk. It's all because of his little controlling acts but he didn't realize it didn't really bother me. You can't break somebody that has already been broken. After all the pain that I went through of my family you thought the little stupid crap that he was doing to me, was going to affect me? And it didn't. I laughed in his face and it made him mad. It made him frustrated. And I didn't care because this is how I felt. You can't hurt me if I've already been hurt.

AMT: There was a third girl who was kidnapped in 2004. I can't believe I say 2004 like it just kept going.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yeah.

AMT: Gina DeJesus. You knew another girl had been abducted. How did you know?

LILY ROSE LEE: Well the first thing he would do is turn on a radio. He would sit there and say oh there's another girl on TV. And the first thing that would come onto my head is because he's been doing, he took another girl. I was like, yeah it's probably another girl you took.

AMT: Throughout the book, when you talk about him you never use his name. You call him the dude.

LILY ROSE LEE: He's a dude. He's a person without a name.

AMT: Why?

LILY ROSE LEE: And he always will be. Because a person as coldhearted like that don't deserve a name. He may be a human, but he don't deserve a name.

AMT: Amanda Berry had a baby in 2006. You're smiling.

LILY ROSE LEE: The beautifulest thing that ever came into that house.

AMT: Jocelyn.

LILY ROSE LEE: Such a beautiful life. She made it so much happier. Even though there was sadness in the house, she made it so much happier. She put a smile on our face.

AMT: I don't know how difficult it is for you to talk about that because you also became pregnant several times in that house.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

AMT: What happened every time?

LILY ROSE LEE: He found out and he would starve me. Beat me severely. There was times that he knocked me down the stairs just to get rid of it. And then he'll turn around and say it's your fault. It's all your fault. You made me do this.

AMT: What was it like the day the police came to the house? Describe it for me.

LILY ROSE LEE: Well at first it was traumatic because I thought you know we were being broken into. I didn't really realize it was the cops. And when somebody did scream cops, I was hesitant. Not because I was trapped in that situation it's because anybody can say cop. Anybody. You could sit there and say police or fire department and somebody will be like okay I just heard all that noise, is that really true? And then you ease your way into like believing that it's the cops. So you try to look out. You try to eventually you know reach the door, turn it without being afraid. And then soon as I heard the radio and I kept on looking out the door, I ran straight in that woman's arms. And I grabbed her. And the last thing I heard from her, she's choking me I need to put her down. [Laughs].

AMT: You had literally put your arms and your legs around.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes. I like literally put my arms around her and I told her not to let me go. Told her don't put me down.

AMT: But this was after 11 years in that house as a captive.

LILY ROSE LEE: And after I realized even though I wanted to pinch myself a thousand times and say is this real? Is this real? It was an amazing feeling to be out of the house. The first thing I said when I walked out of the house is, I want to kiss the ground I walked on. And thank God that I'm here right now.

AMT: A few weeks after he was sentenced, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison. What did you think when you heard that?

LILY ROSE LEE: I was saddened by it. I didn't think a person like him would actually killed his self because he had kids. He hurt those kids. They had to bury their father. They didn't have to, you know. They shouldn't have had to deal with that. It's bad enough they had to deal with the pain of knowing that their father was abusive person to more than one person including their mother, they didn't need that pain. They didn't need that suffering. They didn't need people worldwide to sit there and talk down to them like if they were just like their father.

AMT: Michelle thank you for coming in.

LILY ROSE LEE: You're very welcome. And I'm very happy to be here.

AMT: It was good to talk to you.

LILY ROSE LEE: Thank you.

LL: That was Anna Maria Tremonti speaking with Michelle Knight about her book Finding Me, in May 2014. Five years after being freed Michelle Knight goes by the name Lily Rose Lee. And she writes about resilience, love, and healing in her new book Life After Darkness: Finding Healing and Happiness After the Cleveland Kidnappings. And we've reached her in Cleveland, Ohio. Hello.

LILY ROSE LEE: Hello, how are you?

LL: I'm fine thank you. Your name was Michelle Knight. You go by the name Lily Rose Lee now, why?

LILY ROSE LEE: That is little pieces of me. I decided when I was in the house that I was going to take little pieces of my life and put it together as my name. Lily is pure heart and peace. And for my middle name was Rose, best friend and also mother at that time because you know I didn't have very good home life. Last name was Lee and that was my son's middle name.

LL: And you chose this. Why did you choose to go by this name? What did it signal to you?

LILY ROSE LEE: A new beginning.

LL: What does your new beginning and your new life look like?

LILY ROSE LEE: Oh my gosh. It's amazing. It's so pure and peaceful. I love the life that I have now.

LL: You were on the Dr. Phil show in April. Let's listen to a bit of that.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This is my sweetheart Miguel.

VOICE 2: She is a lot different than any person I've ever met. You know she has been through a lot of things and it still surprises me every day how strong she is.

VOICE 1: I love him so much and he has been a great support system for me. Now that I found love and I'm happy, I can do anything.

LL: So you found love. Tell me about the man you love.

LILY ROSE LEE: Oh my gosh when I first met him I didn't really think that we were going to actually fall in love. I really didn't think were going to have anything in common. We end up having a lot in common. We love baseball. We love football. For me it was pure joy to find somebody that loved the things that I loved.

LL: How did you meet?

LILY ROSE LEE: [Laughs] Through mutual friends. I knew his friends and he knew mine. We didn't know each other at that point in time, we were still like talking on the phone. We didn't meet in person yet. But eventually I think it was like a couple of weeks after I let him know who I was and about my book and everything and then he told me that I rather know you for you not for your past. And that just you know made me trust him a little bit more. And so I finally let my guard down a little bit and said, yeah I want to meet you. Let's go.

LL: When he told you all that time ago that he wanted to know who you are now and not who you were. What did that mean to you?

LILY ROSE LEE: It meant so much. It meant so much to me. It meant that he truly cared about who I was, not for my past.

LL: After all those years that you were held in captivity, did you ever believe you would find love and be happy?

LILY ROSE LEE: You know to be honest with you I didn't think I would find love. I was always told that love wasn't for me, that I will never find love. I was used up goods and that's all I was to people. And it took me a while to realize that all these people were just being negative and they didn't know what the heck they were talking about. So [Laughs].

LL: It sounds like Lily Rose Lee decided that she was not going to be a victim anymore.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

LL: And what does that mean to you?

LILY ROSE LEE: That means so much because I choose not to be sad, be destroyed by everything that happened to in my life. I choose not to let it define who I am because I am who I am because of what happened to me and I'm always going to be a special person.

LL: And you're not just doing this for yourself, you've created a foundation called Lily's Ray of Hope. What does it do?

LILY ROSE LEE: Lily's Ray of Hope helps women that have been through domestic violence, human trafficking, child abuse and such. It helps them find a way to get off their feet and have a support system that generally actually cares.

LL: So have you been working on that? Have you been in touch with other women?

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes I have.

LL: And tell me how that goes.

LILY ROSE LEE: I'm currently helping one now. She has been through domestic violence. She's such a sweetheart, very loving, didn't understand you know that somebody can love her so much but now she's learning. And she's learning how to trust. She's learning how to you know do things differently.

LL: And what are you able to share with her that has made a difference in I guess in the way that she's recovering?

LILY ROSE LEE: Just generally my story made a big impact on her.

LL: What did she say about it?

LILY ROSE LEE: She basically told me, and this is me and her having dinner, she basically sat at the table and said you know your story helped me out a lot it has brought me through tough times; I've been through so much in my life and I thank God that they brought a special angel like you into my life. And she said I always knew in my heart that people were brought into my life for a reason. And I believe the same thing too.

LL: Are there ever days when your mind drifts back to those awful days in captivity?

LILY ROSE LEE: Some days some days. It all depends on like what my day is looking like. If there's a certain smell or noise or something that you know basically happens that day or you know somebody said something that was similar or similar sounding that he has done, and I'll be like hold on wait a minute I need a moment to you know take my breath back and be like you know okay I'm cool with this. [Laughs] You know? Because you get into this moment where like a certain smell like cologne or food something that he has made and it just like has a heart wrenching feeling in your heart.

LL: What do you think you learned from writing the book?

LILY ROSE LEE: Oh my gosh I learned so much about myself as well as you know other people. I learned that I had issues that I didn't quite you know know how to solve at that moment. And then later on in life I learned how to deal with them. And I taught myself steppingstones to help me you know cope with these things like being claustrophobic or being you know chained up or you know certain things like that. I had to overcome so many different things in my life. Cloth napkins at a dinner table, I had to learn how to get over that fear. Each fear was a different thing.

LL: Why cloth napkins? Why were they a fear?

LILY ROSE LEE: To silence me he shoved a cloth napkin down my throat and I had to rip it out of my throat and it made my throat bleed.

LL: Oh Lily. I'm sorry.

LILY ROSE LEE: And then you know helmets. You know I went scuba diving and you had to have a helmet on your head to go underneath the water and I literally had to get over my fear of helmets because that's what you had to put on to go under the water.

LL: Because he use to put a helmet on you.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

LL: And what are you looking forward to as your life moves forward? What do you want in your life? Now that you have loved, you have Miguel.

LILY ROSE LEE: For me the only thing I want is God to bless me with a little sweetheart.

LL: And what are the chances that's going to happen soon?

LILY ROSE LEE: I'm hoping soon. [Laughs]

LL: Well because you can't have children on your own, it's medically very difficult I understand, because of the beatings.

LILY ROSE LEE: Yes.

LL: So what are you looking to then?

LILY ROSE LEE: Either adopt or a surrogate mom.

LL: What kind of mother are you going to be?

LILY ROSE LEE: I'm going to be a perfect mom. I'm going to have some issues when I first you know start out. There's going to be you know just like every mom, they're going to say they're going to be perfect but there's going to be flaws. There is going to be some issues. There is going to fears. But I'm going to deal with those one day at a time.

LL: Lily Rose Lee you are inspirational and I wish you nothing but the best in your future and thank you for talking to me.

LILY ROSE LEE: You're very welcome.

LL: Bye bye.

LILY ROSE LEE: Bye.

LL: Lily Rose Lee formerly known as Michelle Knight is the author of Life After Darkness: Finding Healing and Happiness after the Cleveland Kidnappings. She was in Cleveland, Ohio. Coming up in our next half hour, a book that tells a true life adventure story that's stranger than fiction. We'll repeat my conversation with Carl Hoffman about the last wild man of Borneo. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to this summer edition of The Current.

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Why a Swiss adventurer left the Western world to join a nomadic Indigenous community

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Rain forest soundscape]

LL: The island of Borneo in Southeast Asia has long held a special mystique. It's a wild and remote place where orangutans roam through ancient rainforests and bats, the size of foxes with wings spans as wide as a man is tall, soar through the air. Borneo's human inhabitants are no less fascinating adorned with dramatic swirling tattoos, living in longhouses, and hunting with blowpipes in a world that is still wild and seemingly isolated from modernity. It's a place my next guest was drawn to as a young man, much like the subjects of his latest book The Last Wild Man of Borneo; it's an adventure story, a real life mystery and a meditation on the fascination that Borneo still holds in our cultural imagination. I spoke with Carl Hoffman in March and I began our conversation by asking about his own personal fascination with Borneo.

CARL HOFFMAN: Well I think it all began for me I mean when I was a small kid. But then in 2012 I ended up living in a very remote village in what's now Indonesian, New Guinea. And while I was living there it confused me and it sort of changed all my perceptions about indigenous people and in particular how we view them. And I came to see that we kind of fetishized them and exoticized them. And it's part of that you know I was I was like at two and I had long this desire while I was there to stay forever and to sort of become adopted by the people if you will and that's a long western fantasy. But I also had this desire to flee. Life is difficult there and it's difficult for someone like me to pierce the culture and I had long been aware of Bruno's story and been fascinated by it.

LL: Why did Bruno Manser originally go to Borneo?

CARL HOFFMAN: Bruno was a Swiss man who went to Borneo for the first time in 1984. He was living in the Alps kind of trying to remove himself from Western society and culture, live without money and he'd seen a photo of the Penan in a library and the Penan looked exotic and lived in a in a world without money and were pure hunter gatherers. And he just decided he wanted to go there and live with them and kind of escape from the world, live in the belly of the mother as he put it.

LL: And who are the Penan people?

CARL HOFFMAN: Borneo is filled with the wide variety of indigenous people mostly known by the general term Dayaks. And then in the very deepest part of the forest lived the Penans who were pure hunter-gatherers, nomads, lived in small bands, shared everything communally, hunted with blow pipes, avoided the sun, were completely non-violent and that was all attractive to Bruno.

LL: Now the other story that you tell is about a man named Michael Palmieri who is he?

CARL HOFFMAN: Michael was an American from Southern California who got the call from the U.S. military in the 60s and headed first to Mexico and then to Europe and had this sort of wild 10 year sojourn in Europe before ending up going into Borneo. And he was drawn, like Bruno, to the place itself and the people but also he was particularly drawn to the art of the Dayaks. They were beautiful carvers in particular and he began buying and selling the art of the Dayaks.

LL: Tell me a little more about the Dayaks.

CARL HOFFMAN: The Dayaks is sort of a general term for the indigenous people of Borneo. Really we're talking about a lot of different groups with many different languages but the essential are that they lived in great long long houses. They tended to often tattoo themselves both men and women, great ornamentation, stretch their ear lobes down to their shoulders with heavy brass rings and wear beautiful clothing. And they were warriors and headhunters. But they were sedentary rice growers versus the nomadic Penan deeper into the forest.

LL: So you have these two men Bruno Manser and Michael Palmieri. What links the stories of these two very different men for you?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well there are two things. One on the surface they seem very very different. But the more I thought about them and looked at them the more I felt that they were both kind of motivated by the same thing, really fuelled by the same fire. They were both in pursuit of this perceived wisdom power of indigenous people that the West kind of fetishizes and fantasizes about and that's so there's a long long history of that. And that you know they were both Westerners from wealthy rich countries. So baby boomers who fled their militaries and sought you know a certain solace in the east. And that they were both in a way two sides of the same coin and then it turns out that they had met that their paths had crossed in Borneo once. And that's what really suddenly you know it seemed like ultimately kind of an inevitable crossing of paths of these two men. And that brought the stories together for me.

LL: And you learn that in talking to Michael Palmeri. What did he say about that encounter?

CARL HOFFMAN: It's a relatively small encounter on the one hand but it also it felt to me as I said inevitable that these two men in their pursuit of this kind of treasure and this hunger for this idea and this ideal, that even though they were so different that their paths should cross. They were really representative of their time and their culture I mean all over the world, all over the West I guess I should say, not just in America or Canada but throughout Europe too. You had people wanting something more something different I mean they went further and deeper perhaps than most people and that's what makes them good kind of avatars to explore all this.

LL: Do you envy them?

CARL HOFFMAN: Of course. Absolutely. You know I envy both of them mean because they represent you know these two twin impulses in a way. I mean Michael went in and out in and out. He would go in for one month, two months ,three months at a time and then he would always come back to Bali. He was based in Bali. And Bruno was the guy who went in and kind of he became so Penan that the Penan themselves called him Penan man, at a time when the Penan themselves were undergoing change starting to wear t-shirts and gym shorts, and Bruno was wearing loincloths and cutting his hair in this sort of unusual almost a mullet style like a Penan. I mean he was even experimenting with banging out barkcloth to make barkcloth loincloths. And most Penan weren't even wearing loincloths then. So you know he did this sort of fantastic thing. His life was so crazy I mean we haven't even talked touched upon what he would eventually happen when he was there.

LL: We're coming to that.

CARL HOFFMAN: So course I envy them. I mean absolutely.

LL: The big turning point in Bruno's story is when the logging industry comes to Borneo. What did that mean for Bruno and the Penan?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well Bruno looked at living in with the Penan as sort of living - as he put it - in the belly of the mother which is kind of a reference to Eden in a way, a perceived Eden. And he had been there just about a year when logging in Malaysia accelerated in a in a powerful way and the logging came directly into the traditional lands of the Penan. And the Penan as nomads you know they didn't live in houses. They didn't live in villages. So the whole forest was their home and that home was just being mowed down. And the Penan had traditionally been these shy illiterate, the least powerful people really in all of Malaysian. Bruno organized them to begin blockading logging roads and in doing so he brought this billion dollar industry to a halt and threw a huge wrench into the system and became famous overnight really both in the West and in Malaysia. He became the most wanted man in the country.

LL: So he became famous and infamous at the same time.

CARL HOFFMAN: Both for sure and you know the fascinating thing about Bruno which is important to all of this is the way Bruno kind of got caught up in all these tropes, that he would have been the last one to think that that would happen to him. To him the Penan were sort of these ahistorical people who were living in a purer way, untouched by time or the modern world and he wanted to save that. And the West suddenly Bruno you know all these reporters started flooding into Sarawak to see Bruno. People from German magazine Stern or German Geo. These were big magazines Wall Street Journal, I mean the New York Times. And you know what they were really fascinated by wasn't even the Penan or the logging blockade, so much it was Bruno. It was this Westerner who had sort of become this like Tarzan figure and that's like the old Western fantasy around. And then to the Malaysians he was this sort of it was a return to colonialism. And the Malaysians felt incredibly threatened by this guy from one of the wealthiest countries on earth. And so all of those tropes start to mix and make things complicated.

LL: It's a bit of an aside but I just want to ask you within that context of what you're talking about Western tropes, the book it makes me think about National Geographic admitting that its content over the years had been racist and I'm wondering what were you hoping to avoid as you wrote about the Penan and Dayak?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well I think that on the one hand it's a kind of supposed to be a ripping yarn, just an adventure story, a sort of high paced adventure story. But I think that really ultimately the book is about much deeper themes and it is about examining all of those things and asking a lot of hard questions. So what National Geographic just said is long time coming. I would say they didn't even really go far enough. They kind of admitted to racism in the long distant past. But I would say there's evidence of it in the more recent past as well.

LL: Let's get back to Bruno's story. He eventually leaves Borneo after suffering a horrible injury. Tell me about that.

CARL HOFFMAN: Well Bruno was there for six years and he didn't want to come out but he had become- It became very difficult for him to move around because he was under so much pressure from the government. He was arrested twice, escaped twice under gunfire. He was obsessed with snakes and he was always catching them and finally he was bitten by a pit viper and he almost died. I mean he was unconscious essentially for three weeks and couldn't walk for three months or so and was really hobbling even at six months. And you know his parents were getting old and he was talking about sort of doing more and wilder and wilder things handing himself over to the government and being arrested and his family was worried about him. So it's a crazy wild story. But he escaped with a false passport and various disguises and left after six years and then started all this activism that went on for ten years and ultimately led to the sort of tragedy of the book.

LL: But he did leave and started this activism. His fame continued to grow and in fact Wade Davis who is a Canadian ethno botanist anthropologist became one of his champions in a way. Tell us about that.

CARL HOFFMAN: Well Bruno you know as he generated so much fame when he was in Borneo. But then when he came home of course I mean even you know the escape even added to his mystique in a way. He had these very close friends in Switzerland who were also working on trying to halt logging in Sarawak. And one of them, one of the most important to him told me that after Bruno came back he said to me 'Well if Greenpeace wanted to hold an action, they had to do all this work to build it and talk to the press. And if we wanted to have an action all we had to do is produce Bruno. Bruno was the action'. And you know people told me that he smelled like a shepherd. Another person said 'he was like Jesus Christ'. Another person said 'you would follow Bruno anywhere'. He had this magnetism, a purity, an authenticity. And he had done things that people only dream about. You know he was he spoke to 20,000 people at a Grateful Dead concert in Wembley Stadium. He met with Vice President Gore. He went traveled all over the world. He did 60 day hunger strike, almost died. I mean he his actions became more and more reckless but also you know his heart was so in it that people were so attracted to him. But I mean the sad thing is that for all the fame that he gained he really was incredibly ineffective ultimately in stopping logging and preserving the Penan lands which is the thing that he wanted to do.

LL: After a while though as you mentioned he does start sneaking back into Borneo illegally. What was it? Why did the place have such a hold on him?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well I mean I think he found himself in a very difficult place I mean and he you know he couldn't really live in in Switzerland anymore. I think it wasn't a place that - or the West - it wasn't a place that really held his heart. So he would keep going in and out of Borneo which was crazy and incredibly dangerous. I mean he was a wanted man. There were reports that there was a price on his head. And as he would go in he had friends, the Penan people he loved in Borneo but at the same time a lot of those people were also starting to settle and to stop fighting the government. And of course the government was exerting so much pressure. So he was sort of caught in this vice. He would say that he really gave his life to the piano and that's everything that he wanted and there was no kind of painted himself into a corner. I mean there was nowhere for him to go and that's really the tragedy

LL: Then one day he just disappears. Have you been able to learn about what happened to him?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well his friends, the people to whom he was closest are pretty sure what happened to them and it makes sense to me. I won't say exactly what I think it is. I'll leave a little mystery for the book, for readers. But you know it's pretty clear that Bruno was suffering by the time he made a sojourn to Sarawak in 2000 and all of his friends got a bad feeling from his communications. His girlfriend refused to drive him to the airport. Everybody just felt uneasy and he wouldn't say when he would be back. And he did unusual things.

LL: And are you suggesting he was mentally ill?

CARL HOFFMAN: I wouldn't say he was mentally ill but I would say he was depressed for sure. One of his best friends said to me something that was really moving to me him which I think applies to both Bruno and Michael in two very different ways. He said you know the secret to getting older is to maintain your beliefs and if you lose them you know to find new beliefs and a new way of living. And he said Bruno failed to do that. And Bruno went into Borneo and he vanished. He was never seen again.

LL: How do the Penan people remember Bruno?

CARL HOFFMAN: Ask Penans about Bruno and they all say that they love him. They'll say we hunted with them. We walked through the forest with him. You know we love Bruno. But it's kind of a in a mythical- it's like he's been gone so long. The Penan don't like to use real names and they give people names and their name for Bruno was lucky Penan, the Penan man and now they call him like the man who disappeared.

LL: Let's switch our focus now to Michael Palmieri. Where is he now?

CARL HOFFMAN: Michael moved to Bali in 1974 and he's been there ever since other than his sojourns into Borneo.

LL: So he's had his stories turned out very differently than Bruno Manser's. Why do you think things turned out so differently for him?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well I mean because they pursued very different paths. To me what's really interesting about these two stories is the way that Bruno was such a saint. I mean he wanted no fame. He wanted no riches. And yet that led to this incredible tragedy. As I said he just found himself in this corner from which he couldn't extricate himself. And he was also very selfish often and did things like he was supposed to be a speaker at an event and you know thousands of people would gather and then he just wouldn't show up. And he would disappear and days later he would reappear and they would say 'Bruno where were you?' He'd say 'well I found some caves. I stumbled upon some caves and I just wanted to go explore them'. And Michael on the other hand is somebody who is much more in some ways like a regular guy, much more mercantile and much more of a buccaneer. And Michael was always trying to trade and wheel and deal. And in end the forest that Bruno wanted to save so much is gone. I mean it's sad. And you know the impact he had is fairly small and Michael who is on the surface this much less saintly figure, there are Dayak works of art, great works of art, very old ones that are all over the world in museums for people to view and scholars to look at. And Michael is living as he puts it in his little grass shack in Bali and sort of navigating old age more successfully.

LL: What do what do both of their stories say to you about the fate of Borneo indigenous cultures?

CARL HOFFMAN: Well ultimately the fate is, it's a sad one. I mean in most ways I mean the forest is gone the Penan are settled. The great longhouse culture is of Kalimantan of Indonesian Borneo are no more. You know the world's changed. That's said, you got to be careful about your own kind of tropes. I'm in a place like Kapit a town in Sarawak and I'm standing there and there's traffic all around and construction going up everywhere. People are walking around in blue jeans and cell phones and relatively affluent and you say gosh you know where are all the Dayaks. And yet most of those people around you quite a few of them are Dayaks and they don't fit my own Western fantasy, exotic fantasies of people living in old longhouses and loincloths anymore. But they are people with ed now getting educations and having a lot more opportunity. And for me, I have a different idea of what's good but that doesn't mean that that works for them and people need to have their own, to be in control of their own lives and make their own choices whatever those are.

LL: Let's bring it back to these two men finally and you've alluded to this already that it would be easy to paint Bruno Manser as an idealist and Michael Palmieri as an opportunist. But as you tell the story it's not quite that simple. At the end of all of this, how do you see these two men?

CARL HOFFMAN: Yes I think that that's sort of one of the most interesting thing. I mean for me even as a as a writer working on that book was this sort of evolution of my feelings of these two men and how they kind of negotiated life and how everything turned out. I mean I guess I would say that the world isn't black and white and that the world is much more and life is much more complicated and nuanced and grey and that hopefully you read this book and you ask all those questions and you ponder it. You know for me I think I see Bruno - both Bruno and Michael as people who've led remarkable lives but also lives that that you want to ask a lot of questions about.

LL: Fascinating stuff. Carl Hoffman thank you so much for your time.

CARL HOFFMAN: Thank you.

LL: Carl Hoffman is the author of The Last Wild Man of Borneo. I spoke with him in March. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. At the start of Eric Roberts acting career he was tipped as the industry's next big thing; some 500 credits and counting later he has another title, hardest working man in Hollywood. Eric Roberts will stop by q to talk about the dangers of big expectations and finding refuge in work. Well yesterday crowds gathered at Aretha Franklin's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame mourning the death of The Queen of Soul. She died yesterday at the age of 76. Tributes from Canadians poured in on Twitter. Celine Dion calls her the most soulful and inspirational singer of our time. Dan Aykroyd says what a voice, what a soul, angel choirs should prepare for increased rehearsal and discipline. Paul Jefferies the producer and songwriter known as 'Nineteen85' wrote, Say a little prayer, we love you Aretha. It seems like the perfect place to end the week and my stint on the summer edition of The Current. Ioanna Roumeliotis is in the chair next week. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening.

[Music: Aretha Franklin 'I Say A Little Prayer']

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Friday August 17, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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