After Season 4 of Ride debuted this month, Mary Beth Barone is explaining why she and Benito Skinner have tried to get out of their Dear Media podcast contract.
The Galaxy Brain comedian explained that they “did try to get out of the contract” for their podcast that launched in 2023 but “were not able to,” following their disagreement with some of CEO Michael Bosstick’s political views.
“So, it’s definitely one of those things that feels confusing, I think, for our listeners ’cause we’re so politically vocal on the podcast, progressive,” explained Barone on the Talk Easy podcast. “I’m in the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America]. We believe in vaccines. I rode for medicine in an episode last season. I’m talking about progressive politics all the time.”
While Bosstick has identified himself as politically independent, he has supported RFK Jr. with unsubstantiated claims that the COVID vaccine “caused many harm” since the pandemic, featuring the HSS secretary and Ivanka Trump on Dear Media podcasts.
Barone said she didn’t know supporting science would be controversial, “but it is. And so, it’s good that we can address it because we’re not afraid of repercussions at this point.”
Following a “pretty frank conversation” with the higher-ups at Dear Media, Barone said, “All we can do is use the platform that they are giving us. They’ve never censored us. We’ve always said what we wanted to say. You’re not always going to align with the larger companies that you work for or that greenlight the projects that you want to make. So, it really came down to, do we want to continue doing the podcast, which the answer was yes.”
“Of course it’s hard to reconcile that,” added Barone. “But I do think that if you look at the top of many companies, you’re going to find people who align with those politics. So, it’s not necessarily asking people for cognitive dissonance, but it’s this idea that there’s really no way to navigate the world without interacting with companies like that. If anyone’s figured it out, please let me know. … I saw one comment that said, ‘There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism.’ And I’m sure that might feel like an easy out at times, like you’re just allowing these things then because you think there’s no way of winning or there’s no way of doing it in the ethical way. But I truly believe that.”
On the Season 4 premiere episode of Ride, Barone mentioned their “substantial political differences” with the top brass, noting that “when we started, it was a bit of a different situation.”
“The crazy thing about a contract is, it is a contract, and I always forget that,” said Skinner, adding: “I think the unfortunate thing is that, sometimes you sign a contract, and you don’t know all affiliations when you do. And those come into the light, which is unfortunate.”
