SmartLess is getting online backlash after an awkward exchange between co-host Jason Bateman and guest Charli xcx about her decision not to have children.
In the episode of the popular podcast, which aired Tuesday, the singer spoke about her experience growing up as an only child, in which her parents were incredibly supportive of career, even chaperoning her to the raves she would play as a young performer. But she added that without siblings to fight with, she did not learn how to handle conflict well until later on.
Bateman then asked the 33-year-old if she would like to have one child or several, to which the singer replied: “I actually don’t really want to have kids.”
“That could change,” she continued. “I love the fantasy of having a child, like naming it sounds so fun. But that is exactly a sign to me as to why I should not have one, the fact that that feels like the coolest part about it. Maybe I’m not ready.”
“I mean I guess I’m backing into giving myself a half-assed compliment here, but my wife did not want to have kids, so the story goes. She said once we started going out she thought, ‘OK, I think I can have a kid with this guy.’ So you might find somebody,” Bateman continued.
“Well, I’m married,” Charli responded.
“There you go. I gotta read a newspaper one of these days,” Bateman said.
The singer laughed off the response in the largely friendly exchange, but some fans of the Brat star online read negatively into the exchange as putting pressure on a woman to have children, with some also pointing to the lack of research Bateman had done before having her on as a guest.
Press representatives for SmartLess and SiriusXM, home of the podcast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bateman’s questioning aside, the lack of research is a central conceit of the show, which launched during the pandemic as a pastime for friends and now hosts Will Arnett, Sean Hayes and Bateman. Each episode, one host brings on a guest, for which they’ve prepared questions, who is unknown to the other two, who then ask questions on the fly. Charli xcx was a guest of Hayes, who had prepped questions and unearthed the origin of her stage name: her former MSN screen name.
This strategy, and the camaraderie between the hosts, has helped propel the podcast to a more than $100 million multiyear deal, a Golden Globe nomination and off-the-cuff discussions, such as a freeform conversation with Jake Gyllenhaal about Bateman’s downhill biking abilities.
But as Tuesday’s episode showed, there can also be pitfalls to this strategy, as during the course of the episode, Bateman also learned that Charli had coined the term “brat.” She joined the podcast to promote her A24 movie The Moment.
One silver lining: Charli proved that even though she was once an only child, she’s learned something about handling conflict.
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