EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,046 words- 0:04 – 1:33
Nick Yarris’ wrongful conviction and the crime he didn’t commit
- JRJoe Rogan
Three, two, one. Stir it up, Nick. We're live.
- NYNick Yarris
Hello, everyone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hello, everyone.
- NYNick Yarris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Put the, uh, ear cups on and cheers, sir.
- NYNick Yarris
Ah man, thank you, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for being here, man.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. Thank you for bringing me out here, man. I know we meant to do this before but I hope now with all this good energy between us, we can do this properly for your audience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah. For sure.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, man. To say that you've had a crazy experience in this life is one of the most understated things a person could ever say. I mean, where do we begin, right? Let's... Tell everybody your story. So, you were wrongfully committed of murder. You spent 22 years on death row before you were exonerated by DNA evidence.
- NYNick Yarris
Hello, everyone.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NYNick Yarris
My name is Nick Harris and I was, as Joe said, convicted and sentenced to die for a rape and murder I didn't commit at the age of 21. In 1981, a woman named, um, Mrs. Craig was murdered in Delaware. I had never met the woman. I was in prison on unrelated charges and I stupidly made up a story to try and get out of those charges. The police soon feel- realized that I was a liar and they fabricated the charges around me then. So, it's ironic then in a few days you're going to Upper Darby, Pennsylvania and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 1:33 – 2:49
Early trauma, addiction, and the path into chaos
- NYNick Yarris
... that's where the murder happened really, basically. And Linda May Craig was leaving her job at 4:05 PM on December 15th, 1981. She's going home. She gets abducted. I don't know any of this, but I tried in desperations to get out of a lie that this officer put on me for... I, I got pulled over in a stolen car. The cop beats me up. He puts charges on me. I'm facing life imprisonment and I'm a junkie because all of my life I was destroyed by what happened to me at the age of seven. I had my head beaten in by a man with a rock in his hand after he sexually assaulted me and I did all the stupid things that people can do in the aftermath. I kept it a secret and I let it foster all the anger in me. I became very aggressive as a child and I ended up in trouble all the time. And m- uh, when I was in prison on these unrelated charges to the murder, I stupidly fell in them to that mindset of desperation of trying to get out of it. So, the police put a prisoner in the cell next to me. He said I confessed to him. I was given a three-day trial. I was sentenced to death and put on death row and then stupidly, I escaped from prison in 1985 and end up on the FBI's Most Wanted List. How did you get out?
- JRJoe Rogan
How did you get out?
- 2:49 – 6:04
1985 escape: the gas-station bathroom, gunshot, and the four-hour manhunt
- NYNick Yarris
I was being transported to court and the sheriffs were being cool with me at first. They were talking about what was going on in Philly. They were two nice guys, like 60 s- s- 68, 67 and we drove five hours from one of the hardest prisons in America called Huntington and I left there after spending two years of my first two years in silence. So, if you opened your mouth, they would come in and beat your head in. So, I was so glad to get in the car 'cause my mom was waiting in my lawyer's office 'cause they were gonna give me a review of my trial because they withheld so much evidence. So, I was eager to go to court and it was the coldest day of 1985, February 15th. We stop at a gas station in, in Exton, Pennsylvania and as I got out of the car, the officer driving pulled past the cubicles. Now, we all got out of the car and ran over to the cubicle together and I went in and started peeing. And the officer's holding the door for me and my eyeglasses start fogging up. You know what I mean? 'Cause you go from the freezing cold to the warm to the cold, your eyeglasses... So, all I know is I turn around and I come out and he has the door like that and I put my head down, go under his arm and I turn left and go back to the car and a dude smoking a cigarette doesn't know that his partner went into the cubicle to piss. And as I'm running back to the dude, he pulls his pistol out and point-blank shoots at me, Joe, like pow. And as it went past my face I was like, "Oh, shit." I hit the ground. I ran and he followed me with the gun. I could feel it like on my... Like I was waiting for him to blast me, you know? Like...
- JRJoe Rogan
Why did he shoot at you?
- NYNick Yarris
'Cause he thought I overpowered his partner.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- NYNick Yarris
He doesn't know. His testimony at trial was, "I turned around. Nick's running at me and my partner's down or gone. I pulled my gun and he runs and I, I wasn't gonna let a death row prisoner run so I tried to stop him, I shot." So, I run around the corner. I hit the ground. I ripped all the skin off my hands. I run around the corner and I fly towards this restaurant and there's all these people innocently eating dinner and I'm running right towards the plate glass window 'cause he ain't gonna blast me, you know? And I ran like... I knew he couldn't shoot and then I shot around the corner and I ran down to a gas station. I tried to steal a car. That didn't work. Then I ran f- like 400 yards, 400 yards, 400 yards and I hid behind the car I just escaped from and I was laying in the weeds behind the gas station about 50 yards from him while they were screaming, "Who was the bigger idiot for letting this happen?" And I was thinking, "Oh my God." Like, "What am I doing? What do I do, Joe? What..." Like, how do I just jump up and say, "Wait a minute, it was a mistake." You know? He already tried to shoot me in the face.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NYNick Yarris
So, I go hide behind the police station and next four hours, oh my God, I'm getting pai- chased by a helicopter and he chases me and he pins me and he chases me and I was so fit that I ran for four hours through the woods without care what the branches did to my face or nothing, man. I blew out both, uh, quads. I did my, my hamstrings. I ripped my feet open. I ran so hard in terror that I didn't care, man and I got away and I, I, I made it all the way to Florida and I was gonna leave the country and all this and I said, "I gotta go back."
- 6:04 – 7:06
Florida flight, suicidal plans, and turning himself back in
- JRJoe Rogan
How did you get to Florida?
- NYNick Yarris
I stole a dude's wallet in New York and I got on an airplane, and I went down to Florida, and I tried to rob a drug dealer, and I tried to do just... I was sitting there, I was so angry, I was gonna kill myself. I was on, uh... I'll never forget this day. (breathes deeply) I didn't want my folks to see me in prison handcuffs no more, you know? So, I was gonna buy a raft and I was gonna go out in the ocean and I was gonna have one last party with all the foods that I loved. Then I was gonna stab the raft, wait, and for the sharks after I cut my wrists, you know? And then I was gonna cap myself and go. Then I said, "No, I'm going back." So, I turned myself back in. They put me on death row in Florida, and I went back and I faced it, you know? So, they beat me for four minutes, man. They broke my face, broke my back, (breathes deeply) crushed me, man. Tortured me. And I thought, "I'm gonna get you back." You know? "For all the days you made me go in a cage and beat some other prisoner while you stood there with a club laughing at me, I'm gonna get you back.
- 7:06 – 9:02
Aphasia, learning to speak, and transforming himself inside prison
- NYNick Yarris
I'm gonna make sure I start being a loving person again." So, I'm sitting there in 1985, 1986, with 105 years plus the death penalty, and I decided, "Fuck this, I'm gonna be a nice guy." So, I started to learn... Okay. I suffer from aphasia. I had my head beaten in with a rock. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
What i- what is aphasia?
- NYNick Yarris
Aphasia can be identified simply in people who have stuttering disorder. Their brain and their, uh, ve- vernacular abilities are distorted by a disruption in their brain. Either their brain is functioning too fast or their mouth is functioning too fast, or there's a combination of it d- misfiring. And aphasia can be th- tr- through trauma or through genetics, and aphasia affected my life so much as a young person, I never had the respect to listen to people, 'cause I couldn't function, I couldn't articulate, I couldn't speak. When I was at trial people spoke words that I didn't understand, and it frustrated me, and when I tried to speak and I'd stutter, people would be like, "Da, da, da, come on, retard, what do you got to say?" So, after that beating, where they beat me for four minutes and they broke my face, (sniffs) I began practicing speaking to myself. Every day I learned new words, and I taught myself how to correctly articulate that word into a sentence beautifully from my own self in my cell every day. And then I became very, very good at writing. I began helping other prisoners. I became the most dangerous prisoner that they held because I cared about other men. I wrote to their mothers. I wrote letters to their lawyers. I gave up opportunities for people to write books about me so I could help another innocent man. I did all those things because that's how
- 9:02 – 10:20
First DNA push, lost evidence, and the long road to exoneration
- NYNick Yarris
I got back at them for that they did to me. So, in 1988, I'm sitting in my cell and I read about DNA, and I knew right then I could prove my innocence. So, I was the first man in America in February of 1988 to ask for DNA testing to prove my innocence, and they threw away all the autopsy material. And when I discovered new evidence, they destroyed that. And this woman who came to meet me and started visiting me fell in love with me and she believed in me, so she stood by me and told me that she would be with me either to the gallows walk or to the moment I proved my innocence. And for nine years she stood by me, you know? And finally, we found some evidence that was testable in 1995.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is, what was the evidence?
- NYNick Yarris
It was sperm from the, uh, rape, and it was being sent out here to California to Dr. De- Deb- Edward Blake, and it broke open in transport and spilled. So, Jackie left me. I had nothing left. And then they put me in a special unit, and they started torturing me. I keep this part, quiet. I never told this story. It would ruin what happened in Fear Road 13 that's now out on Netflix. But they finally closed
- 10:20 – 11:52
Supermax ‘special unit’ abuse: psychological warfare and “gladiator day”
- NYNick Yarris
down the old prison I was in for 12 years, where the average rate of survival was only five, and I was one of the hardest dudes there and I made it. They closed the prison down and they opened up Greene County Supermax, and the courts ordered that every prisoner in P- Pennsylvania be allowed out of their cell for eight hours. The administration looked at each other and said, "Fuck that, not the crazy cannibals and not the serial killers, not the dudes that have been assaulting and raping each other." So they picked 48 of us out and they put us in Pittsburgh in a special penitentiary setting in which we were in a sealed unit, and they put all these guards in there that weren't allowed to touch other prisoners 'cause they were so violent, and told them they're, "We're giving you the craziest of the crazy." You know Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs was a real man, right? His name was Gary Heidnik. He abducted Black women in Philadelphia and put them in a pit under his house and fed one of them to the other survivors 'cause he was building a master race. He was my neighbor, man. Like, so they started torturing us and doing all this psychological crazy shit to us where they were feeding us to each other like wolves. So, I kept it all quiet until this year when once again misfortune fell on my life and I released Monsters and Madmen, the new book that I was gonna give you today, and I- I thought, you know, "I gotta tell that story," you know? But it's been so hard to come back from these moments, Joe. It's just like, I look at what they did to me and how I went to that moment where the DNA is gone, Jackie leaves me,
- 11:52 – 14:02
Hepatitis C, asking to be executed, and the 2003 DNA reversal
- NYNick Yarris
and so I find out I'm dying from hepatitis C that they did when, uh, I... they infected me of it when they broke my teeth when they beat me. So, I asked to be executed. I said...I studied all of the world's religions. I read over 9,000 books. I did everything in piety my mother asked me to do while I was in prison. (sobs) I don't wanna die like Dale Carter did, with the guards coming to his cell and taunting him, you know, teasing him, and listening to a man scream in agony 'cause the bile in his belly is killing him. So, I wrote to the courts and I asked to be executed. I said, "Fuck it, man." (sniffs) "I wanna die as a man I love, who can respect himself." (sobs) The court intervened and ordered that DNA testing that was gonna be done on the evidence is spilled. In July of 2003, the DNA test come back and they proved me innocent.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did... So, the- the- the evidence spilled, and they just captured it once it spilled?
- NYNick Yarris
(sniffs) It was in a box with all this evidence, and Dr. Edward Blake, who did the OJ Simpson trial DNA, said that there would be challenges to it if he did the DNA in 1999, 1998. In 2003, they had advanced mitochondrial DNA separation so well that he felt confident in his results. So, the federal court got involved and they said, "Look, I don't wanna have this man executed. I want the DNA done." So, they did that, and it was amazing that on the day that I called the lawyers, they revealed the truth to me. (sniffs) I called this lawyer and I'm- I'm like, "What's up?" He goes, "Nick, we got DNA from three separate sources that prove you innocent." And I said, "That's amazing, Mike. I- I- I- I'm- I'm really grateful." He goes, "You know, we used to tell people you're crazy, that we never believed in you. I'm really sorry for that." I'm like, "Man, really? You wanna take a- away my joy now, man?" So, I was really downcast
- 14:02 – 17:48
After exoneration: isolation, distrust, and a life still being punished
- NYNick Yarris
that day. I called my mother. My brother, Mikey, was having a seizure at her feet, 'cause he was an alcoholic after he fell off a roof, and he died shortly after, so it just went fucking crazy from there. They take me off death row, and they put me in a psychological cell, and they tell me they can't trust me. That no human being who has had done to them what we've done to you cannot be angry.That if we open this door up and we let you out, you're gonna get us. So, we're gonna leave you, until the day they let you out, we're gonna leave you in this cell because we don't trust you, m- not to kill us for what we did to you.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did they do to you?
- NYNick Yarris
They used to have a thing called gladiator day. So, the lieutenant would be off on a Sunday, and the guards who started to come from the Philadelphia area were Black, and they didn't like the guards up in the hillbillies beating on Black prisoners. So, a weird thing happened where this lieutenant came up with the idea, "Well, look, let's let the prisoners get this frustration outta you guys by, you pick out the biggest guy and you pick out this guy." So, one day I'm sitting there minding my own business and they open up my cell and there's four of them with clubs. "You're up." So, I gotta go in the cage and I gotta go and hurt somebody, while they stand outside, and if you don't fight, they're gonna come in and they're gonna beat you worse than you can beat a man or get beaten by one man.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they did all this for their entertainment? Were they ever punished for this?
- NYNick Yarris
Not until after the riot, when one of them testified against the others for the murder and stuff. I watched 11 people commit suicide. I've been stabbed, strangled, beaten senseless. The guards used to taunt me 'cause I was a- accused of a psychological murder of going out and stalking this poor woman 'cause she looked like my girlfriend, they said. So, I was never treated like a prisoner. I was treated with deference, the worst word I know in the English dif- dictionary. The way I was treated was so harsh that it was cruel beyond cruel. And yet, all I wanted to do was have enough within me to learn to beautifully speak so that on the day that they executed me, I could tell them how much I cared about myself. That was more important to me than living because somehow when you suffer l- like I have suffered, your head cracks open, and you have a hyper-sensitivity to life, so that when you touch other human beings, you never forget the 14 years no one was allowed to touch you. You know what? Fuck this. I ain't crying no more. (sniffs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's all right, man. There's nothing wrong with crying. You just listen-
- NYNick Yarris
No, I just thought about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
How could you not?
- NYNick Yarris
You know what, Joe? I- I do, because I feel bad for their heart.
- JRJoe Rogan
You shou- you shouldn't feel bad about crying.
- NYNick Yarris
No, because I look in your arms and- and your eyes, and I see the hurt that I'm causing you from doing this.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about that, man.
- NYNick Yarris
All right. Well, this is what I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, all I'm doing is trying to imagine what your life has been like. Don't you worry about me at all.
- NYNick Yarris
(sniffs) I'm harder than life and I'm kinder than love. Secretly, I'm a saint. I never hurt no one. I try my best to be polite every day. And I've had misfortune at every turn. And I'm very sorry that I sit in this chair today after it came about. You see, I believe in good. I believe good is gonna win, Joe. And, uh,
- 17:48 – 36:22
Family tragedy (SIDS), public suspicion, and entertainment-industry betrayal
- NYNick Yarris
I believe that I had good again, almost three years again, when- years ago, when I met my wife, current wife, Laura. (sniffs) See, I had a woman in my life before that who used me and left me here in Los Angeles, and I ended up homeless on the streets here. I was actually living up in this area on the streets 'cause my good friend Noah lives around here. Him and Jason took good care of me, and-... my bad times, I call it. So I go back to England. I meet this woman. I fall in love. We have a baby and she's born on your birthday. And I start to believe in hope again. I go do a podcast in England with my good friend, Brian from 2Jordy and I start to spread my message again. And I want to get all these young kids to believe in themselves. And then one day, I put the baby down for a nap and I get Laura to lay in my arms because she's sick. And we get up 20 minutes later and the baby's dead. And I'm coming down the steps with the bed- dead baby and I'm get- you know, all fucked up again. And, and then people are so cruel that in the village they started ma- you know, "Maybe the baby was killed by the guy on death row," and all this shit. And I have a, a stalker ex-wife, Karen, who just won't leave me alone, contacts the police and tells them that I put out a tweet that I ... And it only happened because my good friend, Anthony Samondano, he was in the green room, told me the day before my daughter died about a good close friend of his, they lost a baby that day. And so when our baby died, I put out a tweet just saying, you know, "Appreciate the people in your life because they're so precious." And the police came to our house and humiliated me and wanted to know how I could tweet about something because my clock was nine hours off because I was living on the streets of Los Angeles and my time was still on LA time, because Anthony and I are developing a major motion picture about my life. And I told the police, "Are you crazy?" Like, why would I... So I can't even get a break on the death of my daughter, like the... That was the moment that the director of the film, Fear of Thirteen, decided to rip me off for my rights to the film. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
He decided to rip you off how?
- NYNick Yarris
He owed me £50,000 from doing the film Fear of Thirteen.
- JRJoe Rogan
He decided to rip you off 'cause he thought you killed your baby?
- NYNick Yarris
No. He decided to rip me off then, not pay me my money when I asked him d- I needed money to bury my daughter. So I end up in a shouting match with Arthur Demoulas, the billionaire from Boston. I promised to get on his plane and come kick his ass over the money we're arguing over, 'cause I begged... I... It was crazy. I ended up-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm, I'm still confused.
- NYNick Yarris
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, uh, so what? So your child dies. Is it-
- NYNick Yarris
My child dies and everything goes badly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... sudden infant death syndrome?
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah, SIDS.
- JRJoe Rogan
SIDS?
- NYNick Yarris
And everybody that I counted on to have my back, including Director David Shectman, who promised to pay me for my participation in the film, all then tell me, "Well, no, I'm not paying you." And I'm like, "How can you do this when I need this money to bury my baby?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Why'd he say he wasn't paying you?
- NYNick Yarris
'Cause he said he didn't owe it to me and all this. I said, "What? Are you crazy? You, you have a written contract." So it's the same thing. You know how the entertainment business is. Once they get what they get out of you, that's it. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
So he just said he wasn't gonna pay you, no matter what the contract said?
- NYNick Yarris
Yes. Right. So Arthur Demoulas invested in the film and he owns most of it. So I write to Arthur. I call him. I said, "Arthur, David's not paying me my money. Can you help me?" 'Cause he owned most of the film by that point. So Arthur gets all annoyed at me. I said, "Look, man, my daughter just died." I blew up at him. I told him, "Send me your private jet. I'll come to Boston. We can have a fist fight. You love to fight." You know, all that shit. I lose control. And then Arthur, out of his grace, sends me some money so we could bury the baby. But it went through all this terrible shit. So I started, I said, "Now I'm going back to America." So I leave England. I come over here. I got two daughters with Laura. We're over here now in Oregon. And Anthony, my God, I meet this amazing man only because of Muhammad Ali dying, and now he's gonna help me make a major motion picture about my life. So I get away from all that trauma of losing the baby and being humiliated by people thinking I would do some shit to a little girl, and I go back and I rebuild everything. And then I try to go to Canada, and they won't let me in. That's crazy. So I can't go do my job there. I lose all that-
- JRJoe Rogan
They won't let you in because you were on death row for 22 years?
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. I s-
- JRJoe Rogan
Even though you're innocent?
- NYNick Yarris
Not only that. I just came from speaking before the United Nations, sitting next to the president and current pr- uh, former presidents of Switzerland, and I have a security clearance from that. I worked in a high profile job in England, uh, going around speaking all over to governments. But Canada holds it against me 'cause I escaped from death row. So I can't enter the Ca- the s- the country of Canada. Robin Sharma tried to have me come up there and speak for him with his conference, and I had to humiliatingly do it from my home via Skype. It's like I'll never stop being punished for what happened. Do you know what I mean? But I, I don't care about that. What really bothered me was that all those things started to befall me and I started losing hope again. So I go, and I even tried recently just to have a normal job and give up everything. I- I, I'm a beautiful speaker in schools and I go around and try and help people with their education, right? So I was trying to do that the last year with a, a friend of mine named Wayne Sharpe from New Zealand. He has a company called MyVerse, and he wants to help children find the correct path. Education is so important. We can't get that going. I can't... I, I decide I'm gonna give up everything and just go get a normal job. But that doesn't work. So I'm sitting there and it's Jamie's birthday and I'm angry. Like, "What the fuck? How could it fall apart again?" So then you contact me after I tweeted and it all starts again, and I'm back to believing that it doesn't matter how I got in this chair or it doesn't matter that the man preceding me has everything and I have nothing. I still believe in good. It's called... You this time. And I told you in that message I sent you, I said, "Fucking hell, Joe, you're gonna change my life doing this, man." You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to be nice to me. But you are. And for that, man, I'm willing to keep going.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can't... I mean, I don't think anybody can imagine what it's like to spend 22 years on death row for something you didn't do. I want you to go back to the night that you got arrested and tell us, 'cause you, you kind of... There's some tissue right beside you if you want it.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah, I'm good, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um.
- NYNick Yarris
I'm done with all that crying. Go ahead, brother.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just... The, the night you were... How old were you? You were 20? 21?
- NYNick Yarris
21. 20.
- JRJoe Rogan
21?
- NYNick Yarris
20. I turned 21 before they sentenced me to death. I'm 20 years old. I'm a Philly kid, and I'm high on meth, and the music's blasting. I'm driving through Chester, Pennsylvania.
- JRJoe Rogan
In a stolen car?
- 36:22 – 51:24
Neuroplasticity, ‘meticulous politeness,’ and the philosophy of not taking life personally
- JRJoe Rogan
Could you explain neuroplasticity for people who don't know what that is?
- NYNick Yarris
Neuroplasticity is a reward system within your brain, wherein your interactions, especially with other human beings, heals you.So, people who suffer from PTSD, people who have had trauma in their lives can actually heal themselves by being meticulously polite. And I began all of this when I was released. My mother sat me down, and she said, "Nicky, listen to me. For you to get out of prison and not be a nice man is a waste of everyone's time. Every prayer, every time someone called me the mother of a monster, every time a woman spit in my face, everything that I went through is a waste of time for you not to be a nice man. So, I want you to promise me one thing. Every day, I want you to go out and say, 'Yes, ma'am,' 'Yes, sir,' and, 'Thank you.' Because I want you to show respect for who you are in that way. They hurt this family badly. It's the only thing I ask." I didn't notice she handed me the tool to healing, because neuroplasticity is the self-contrived act of rewarding yourself for being a nice person. And my gift over the last 14 years is that I made myself so amazingly pliable and gifted at helping others find the good within them. That's the reason I'm truly here today. The thing that I've been able to accomplish through my writing and through my efforts, is to show people that you take things personally in life, you be then a fool. Because what you've done is you've taken all the hurts and you've made them the justified reason why you have to be a asshole to somebody. Whereas you keep forgetting that you've been given a break over and over just to be here, man. Dude, I've been shot, stabbed, strangled, run over by a car, hung myself in prison, two drug overdoses, and I had a cannibal trying to murder me for two solid years. I know that I could fall at any moment from my own hand. But God blessed me. I believe so much in my purpose in life that I won't kill myself. I won't give up, and it's only because I've been tested that I know that it has to be for a reason. I had dreams about all this. While I was in death row, I had the most amazing, intense dreams because of my suffering, and they play out now. So, what happened? Did I manage to touch something we're all chasing or am I in a delusional world? Because I-
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean? What do you mean by that?
- NYNick Yarris
I told people last Ju- last year, I told, uh, everybody on Facebook something was gonna- bad was gonna happen, and it did when my daughter broke her elbow. So, I told everybody before it happened. Two years ago, I told my wife, Laura, I was coming back here to meet Anthony Sammaldani and go on the Good News Network w- and do a thing with Maymay Ali, who's a good friend of mine. And I told him how, uh, things would happen, and sure enough, every time, it's played out. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why did you think something was gonna- bad was gonna happen? When you said something bad was gonna happen and your daughter broke her arm.
- NYNick Yarris
Dude, I'm in a meeting with a guy named Kevin and John, and I look at them and I say, "I have to g-" And I'm on Melrose Boulevard, my daughter's playing in the, uh, the playground a few blocks away, and I'm in this meeting with these men about m- my film. I stand up at the table and I say to them, "I have to go right now." I run outside and I ask my wife, Laura, is she okay? My daughter fell and broke her elbow and had to have six pins put into it in Cedars-Sinai. We have a $63,000 bill that it has stuck us with. But I knew it was gonna happen before it did, and I even told people it was gonna happen. How can I have that touch?
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you know that was gonna happen, specifically?
- NYNick Yarris
I saw the event, but not in real time so I could make sense of it. But I saw the greenery at the park when we pulled up. It was the same. And I had the flash last night when I met Stedman Graham. I had all these moments. A woman last night pinned a thing on my collar and she looked just like my mother, and I had this dream. Because my mom died on September 9th, and 10 years ago, I was actually on a flight September 11th for her funeral. And it's all crazy how I saw all of these things in my dreams on death row and they play out. And it keeps happening with witnesses to my life that are recognizing it with me, so I can't make it up. S- do you know what I mean? I wish my friend Jason was here. He's- he's been able to help me just put this in context, and I'm doing this badly, but I just think that somehow I went through an experience so intense that it has truly cracked open something that has given me a hyper-sensitivity to things. I think that it has allowed me truly to be humble enough to really give my life for a purpose and not be ego-driven, like, I- I have nothing at this moment while we sit here, but I am so proud of the fact that that doesn't ever stop me from believing in good. And you could beat me all day, you could put me in a cage, you could do whatever you want to me, but it's up to me to then make it misery. I'm choosing not to, man. I don't care how much I gotta struggle from this point on or what graces I'm granted, I just want one thing to stay true in my life, that I don't lose who I am. I fought so hard to be this man through a childhood of- of feeling so inadequate 'cause another man raped me, to the feelings that I was so low of being cast aside as a condemned human being, to then rise up and go and speak before governments to the point that Kofi Annan told me that I was one of the finest speakers in the world.... to then go and follow that and stand at the base of the Colosseum where human beings were put to death for entertainment and blow 20,000 people away and have it flawlessly done. And to recognize that I had it all within me to do because of one thing, that neuroplasticity gave me charisma, the kind of charisma you exude. So I don't know where it is that you hit that point where you decided to really believe in yourself, but like you said, you didn't listen to that shit that people were telling you. And once you did that, you started to contrive all this beautiful charisma 'cause I didn't even watch the fight Saturday when you were talking. I listened to you and I thought, "He's so flawless. It's not even thought of." But people would never grant you that. You had to do something in your heart, something within you made you believe in this guy, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, I, I've not had much resistance at all. I'm gonna be honest with you. Like, what you're, what you're saying about me is very kind. I really appreciate it, but really haven't had much resistance.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah, but what it is about you that makes you believe in yourself, yo? What happened? Where'd you hit that point?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I'm pretty sure it came from martial arts, from martial arts competition when I was very young. Pretty sure from the time I was-
- NYNick Yarris
The first beating or the first win?
- JRJoe Rogan
N- neither. Neither. Just, um, just how difficult it was, just, um, um, doing it from 15 to, uh, uh... Pff, before I was 22, I stopped, somewhere around 22. But it was just the fact that it was so difficult, that it, uh, it taught me hard work, taught me focus. And, and, uh, I didn't have anything for that. Before that, I thought I was a loser. Like, I really thought I was a loser. I don't know my father. Um, my stepdad's a very nice guy, but there's something about growing up without a father, uh, that is still alive that doesn't talk to you and, you know, my mom worked all day, my stepdad worked all day. There was no one around. You know, I just, uh... And we moved a lot. I didn't have any friends. So I just, I just, um, I never felt like I was worthwhile, you know?
- NYNick Yarris
That's what I mean.
- JRJoe Rogan
It wasn't anything like what you experienced.
- NYNick Yarris
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
N- nothing-
- NYNick Yarris
But it was enough within you that it was the point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I needed to prove myself. That's what it-
- NYNick Yarris
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... w- I need... I, I wanted to show... I, I... There was something inside me that I needed to show that I wasn't useless. And the only way I could show that I wasn't useless was by being good at things. And initially, it was art, and then after art, it became martial arts. And the martial arts thing was more important than art because the martial arts tested me. Like, art was beautiful because I could draw things and people would love them, and then it made me feel good that people liked my work. But it was... There was a big difference between that and the martial arts. The martial arts was so difficult to do and to compete at a, you know, a national level. It was, um... Every time I did it, I was terrified. But after it was over, I felt better about myself, and I understood that I could actually be good at things. So it was the first thing that I ever did that gave me a, a feeling of, of value.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So I went from being a loser to being an extreme winner.
- NYNick Yarris
That's brilliant. N-
- JRJoe Rogan
But it was just... But it was, but you-
- NYNick Yarris
But that is your point though.
- JRJoe Rogan
But you're saying that people, like, held me back, and, you know, s- that's not really the case. It wasn't... You know, I mean, um, I'm sure people judged me one way or another because of Fear Factor or some of the other things. But the thing about going through the martial arts competition and everything when I was young, I don't, I don't give a fuck how other people view me. I don't. I just do what I like. I do what-
- NYNick Yarris
I-
- JRJoe Rogan
... I like and I try to be nice.
- NYNick Yarris
But that's where your charisma comes from. And where you got that from is still yours, man. I admire that. A lot of people don't have the confidence to do that, to shut off that noise, that thing that makes us all react to everyone else's opinion.
- 51:24 – 1:12:46
Social media backlash, parasocial chaos, and choosing boundaries
- JRJoe Rogan
Social media draw that has hurt your life? How has it hurt your life?
- NYNick Yarris
Well, when my daughter broke her arm and we put up a GoFundMe page, I was viciously attacked because people expect me to have funds, but they don't know, you know? Things are-
- JRJoe Rogan
They expect you to have funds because of the movie and the book?
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. And I'm not. I have nothing. I borrowed money, um, to get here. Like, people don't know that. I'm wearing a shirt from my friend because he funded me to be here, you know, so I'd have food while I was here. It's like that real, you know? So, people don't want me to not succeed, like I hurt their image of me if I don't have wealth in addition to being this person before then.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I just think people just... th- they don't understand. You know, they... people see someone else's life and they like to assume the worst and they like to criticize you whenever they have an opportunity, so if they see any vulnerability, they- they attack.
- NYNick Yarris
Pounce, yeah, I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, what you've gone through is the opposite of what most people go through. People have difficult times in their life, but more than difficult times, you know what they have? They have long periods where they don't have anything happen, where life is boring and life is just a dull gray, and life is just work, and coming home from work, and the trials and tribulations of that, and traffic, and the kind of insane experiences that you had, of being wrongly convicted and spending 22 years confined in a cage, forced to fight because of vicious psychopath guards. That, those kind of experiences are the experiences that allowed you to come out of it this very kind, very open-minded person who's trying to better yourself and wants to see the best in other people. The people that go through their life in this dull state of jealousy, and bitterness, and resentment, and just constantly focused on themselves, this self obsessive culture that we have. And one of the things about social media that's most fucked up is you're looking at all these other people's lives, and shitting on them, and comparing yourself to them, and finding faults in them, and attacking them in the comment section, and attacking what they're... And the people that are doing that, they're all doing that because they're in- they're in agony. They're in a different kinda agony than you, but it's an agony of nothing.
- NYNick Yarris
I know. And I looked at it and I thought, "I- I try to craft a beautiful message on the social medias so that I don't get caught up in the arguments," and I always try to show the good in the world. And that's why I love, like, the Good News Network. I'll try and deliberately stay away from things that poison my mind 'cause I don't want to contribute.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NYNick Yarris
I don't wanna get caught up in the Trump era argument or the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NYNick Yarris
... previous argument or the new argument. I wanna post meaningful messages of good because that's my overall message. So I thought recently, maybe I can contrive three beautiful messages for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and I could leave out this wonderful message, and then I can go about my business of going back into schools and talking to students because it gets too chaotic. Uh, um, in addition to all the lovely, uh, messages of the, uh, wonderful human beings that listen to me speak or they saw the film Fear of Thirteen, read one of my books, there's also a lot of women out there, man, and they've been harassing me and bothering me, and it's put a lot of conflict in my life, and I don't want that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Harassing you and bothering you how?
- NYNick Yarris
A lot of women fall in love with me because of the film.... the film made me look very attractive.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what is it about women and men that are on death row, too? There's something-
- NYNick Yarris
That one, too. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NYNick Yarris
I know, so th- eh, yeah, they'll contact me and tell me about their inmate. I'm not an inmate. I'm not a death row prisoner, but I was on-
- JRJoe Rogan
But what is... that-
- NYNick Yarris
... death row.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is a strange obsession that some-
- NYNick Yarris
It goes-
- JRJoe Rogan
... women have.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. And it goes to a psychological feature of women, uh, who can fix things with their love.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- NYNick Yarris
So they want me to deceive my wife to be with them, but not be deceitful. They want me to ignore all the social chaos I could cause to go and leave a family to be with them, but they still want to harass me. And it was so bad recently, even on my anniversary, I had to cut off people who were bothering me. I have a, a s- an active stalker in my life. Uh, it's all kinda crazy. Uh, I've gone through a lot of experiences where the social media's really tested me, so I thought I'm gonna try and be like the dude. All right, so they're gonna execute-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you say... you- you said that twice, "the dude."
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. The dude is the guy that knows... all right, so this is my last scene.
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't mean, like, from The Big Lebowski?
- NYNick Yarris
Kinda like the dude, man, like, the dude.
- 1:12:46 – 1:25:48
From ‘I failed’ to renewed momentum: podcasting, platforms, and purpose
- JRJoe Rogan
So let me s- let me stop you, because this is one thing that you said to me before the podcast, and you said it again during the podcast, that you only want to do this one podcast, you don't want to say any more. And I want to ask you why, because if you have this powerful message, the more people you reach and the more you express yourself with this message, you're not gonna cheapen your message. What you're gonna do is you're gonna get it out to more and more people. And the more people that you can get out your words, and the way you express yourself, that's gonna affect people, and it's gonna affect people in a very, very positive way.
- NYNick Yarris
Okay. But the other side of that, that no one can appreciate, is that I'm failed. I haven't been able to get anything going. I tried to start a podcast-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no, no, no, no, no.
- NYNick Yarris
I have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let me, let me stop you. Let me stop you. You're not failed. First of all, you've only been out of jail for 13 years. That's fucking crazy. You were in jail for 22 years on death row. There's not a whole lot of people who get through that experience and can tie their own fucking shoes after they're done.You know, you- you- you're- you have every right in the world to be shell-shocked and incapacitated. You're not. It's hard to get things going. The- the world does not open its doors for you, and success does not come easy. It doesn't work that way.
- NYNick Yarris
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, for you to say you failed, you haven't failed. You've already written books. You've already had a documentary made about you. You're in- in the process of making a feature-length film about your life. That's not a failure.
- NYNick Yarris
No, I- I just failed in getting the platforms together that I need.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just-
- NYNick Yarris
And, I guess-
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's not even failing. It's just it doesn't always work out right the first time.
- NYNick Yarris
All right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not- it's not a fail- you're not a failure.
- NYNick Yarris
Okay, then here's the deal for you, sir. Prove your words right to me, and come on ... when I get my shit together, you come onto my podcast and we finish the con- the conversation later on.
- JRJoe Rogan
I would do that. But even if I didn't, it doesn't matter.
- NYNick Yarris
All right, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
You can do anything but... Wow, I just wanna pre- show you, you yourself, this idea that you're- you've failed is crazy. It's- you- you have not failed. If you've done thing- look, first of all, everyone does things that don't succeed, and then you recalibrate and you adjust and you try again. No one succeeds and wins the world championship in their first fight. No one writes a book, uh, without learning English and without practicing essays that becomes the greatest book the world's ever written... read... written, whatever. You- you- you- you take time and you learn. This is what life is about. Life is about this process. And through that process, you find yourself, through the difficult tasks that you undertake-
- NYNick Yarris
Maybe I-
- JRJoe Rogan
... you adjust and you become better.
- NYNick Yarris
Oh, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
You said you started a podcast, you fail-... Well, how long did you do it for?
- NYNick Yarris
I didn't. It never got off the ground. No one believes in me and then they say-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, then that's not a failure.
- NYNick Yarris
I know, I'm just saying, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
First of all, look, the podcasts are easy, man. With that phone you have right there, I'm sure that phone has a, um, of a audio recorder. I've done-
- NYNick Yarris
My $11- my $11 phone probably does. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, they all do.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Every phone does.
- NYNick Yarris
Look-
Episode duration: 1:44:51
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