EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,046 words- 0:00 – 15:00
Three, two, one. Stir…
- 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.
- 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?
- 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."
- 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. 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 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 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, 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.
- 15:00 – 30:00
So, they did all…
- NYNick Yarris
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, 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?
- 30:00 – 45:00
So how'd they find…
- NYNick Yarris
They put me in a room and start doing all this shit to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
So how'd they find out that you lied?
- NYNick Yarris
The dude that I made the story up, uh, was no longer a drug addict and he had an alibi.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you just tried to pin the story-
- NYNick Yarris
On-
- JRJoe Rogan
... on some other drug addict?
- NYNick Yarris
The dude who robbed me, he rolled me up in a rug and tried to kill me with a .357 Magnum, so I figured... I heard the story that he was dead and figure, uh, they won't even find him anyway, you know?But a 20-year-old doesn't have any concept of, you know, complex stuff like this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially in the '80s, right?
- NYNick Yarris
Dude, they came right back to me, and they had me in a Delaware County District Attorney's office. And this Detective Martin told me, in no certain terms, I was gonna tell him why I killed that woman. I wasn't leaving that room. So for 13 hours, they tortured me, man. Started bringing up my childhood and all that shit. I told them, man, "I just wanted to blow up my whole world." I, like ... and they said, "Oh, that's good." So, this is what my confession consists of, um, "I didn't kill anyone. I never meant to kill anyone." "That's good, Nick. That's good. You never meant to kill her." "What are you talking about?" So, I went to trial, and I was given a three-day trial for the murder of Mrs. Craig, after the jury found me not guilty of all my original charges. So, I was really frustrated that a jury heard the testimony of Officer Wright. He would later be fired from the force, uh, being caught up in a drug gang in Chester. He was dirty, uh, but they didn't know it at the time. But a jury found me not guilty. That prosecutor went mental when that happened, and he decided to seek the death penalty. So, a month after I was found guilty- not guilty of all my original charges that I made the stupid story up, I ... they gave me a three-day murder trial that, in essence, was a joke. And what they did was they preyed upon the poor jury and showed them pictures of the victim and stuff like that, man. And they had a inmate who burglarized the prosecutor's home and was facing 20 years come into court and say I confessed to him. That was it.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, the inmate said that you confessed to him?
- NYNick Yarris
Charles Catalino.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they got a guy to do that?
- NYNick Yarris
Yep. So, I'm sitting there, and they dropped a bomb on me, and I know it's coming. The jury was so crass that they went out to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant and put their dessert order on hold while they found me guilty, and then during the fe- sentencing phase, they had their dessert. I was 20 years old, man. I'm like, "This isn't real, man. Like, I never killed or raped this woman. How can this happen?" You know? And then, the only mistake I truly think I made was that I told the judge to go to hell when he sentenced me to death, because he couldn't look me in the face.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do you think that's a mistake?
- NYNick Yarris
'Cause he decided to send me to Huntington Prison, the hardest prison in America at that time.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what was he gonna do before that?
- NYNick Yarris
I don't know, but he made sure I went to the place that they broke you. See, Huntington was designed as the prison if you raped another inmate, they sent you there. It was the first SHU program in America. It was the first real-
- JRJoe Rogan
SHU? What is SHU program?
- NYNick Yarris
A special housing unit, or security housing unit, where s- level five supermax, you know, like Pelican Bay. And, uh, your punishment was that you weren't allowed to speak in your cell. And if you got caught speaking in your cell, they came in with a nurse, and after they beat you down, she jabs you in the ass with Thorazine, and they knocked you out for a week and you lost your mind. So, it was horrible. Like, I told you, the first two years of my sentence, every day I kept my mouth shut. I didn't care what was done around me or not, you weren't allowed to say a goddamn word. And they meant it, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're not allowed to talk to other inmates?
- NYNick Yarris
Nothing. I dare you to sing Happy Birthday to yourself. Like, I didn't. I paid for that one. (swallows) They fucked me up, Joe. But I don't care about that. Look, I realized I was in a race. I had to kill off the person that I was. The person that I initially was upon entering prison was a deceitful, lying coward with no fortitude because no self-respect resided within me. And in utter humbleness, I took everything that they did to me, and I paid for every window I broke, every thing I stole, every lie I told, and then I started to love myself. I figured, I ain't getting nothing out of this but misery, so I'm going out like the dude ... I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna speak beautifully on the day they execute me. I'ma walk to that walk, man. I'ma do this. I didn't kill that woman, but I damn sure ain't no coward. I'm gonna find out everything I can about life, and then I'ma face my death. I'ma do it with ǀadavi, man. Like, I had this beautiful, beautiful speech ready for them too. I was gonna lay it out and just be at peace, because I realized there was nothing else to do. I couldn't fight, I couldn't argue, it didn't matter because God's in control of my life, and I really believed that I had a choice. Either be a bitter pill and get sucked dry by all the misery around me, or get my shit right and start loving myself. So, I taught myself how to speak and overcome neur- this, uh, aphasia that affected me my whole life. And I found out that I was giving myself neuroplasticity healing, and I became very graceful and calm in prison. I was so serene and so powerful.
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you find out you were giving yourself neuroplasticity healing?
- NYNick Yarris
I found that out from Robin Sharma. Robin Sharma is the foremost authority on speaking about neuroplasticity healing. And when he found about what I speak about, he said I am the living embodiment of his teachings. That through grace and dignity and kindness, I've developed my own charisma that carries me with confidence. And that is the description of what he teaches professionals, beginners, everyone.
- 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?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I react to it. I mean, I, I most certainly feel it, but I just don't, I don't, I don't let it change the way I, I go through life. And, uh, I think, because of the lessons that I've learned, I try to express that as much as possible for people that haven't gone through those same lessons so I can, I can, I can express that information and maybe people can absorb some of it without having to go through what I went through. I think what you went through is infinitely more difficult, more trying.
- NYNick Yarris
(sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think that your message and your story can show people that in the worst possible scenario, the beginning of your life as a man, you're wrongfully committed to life in prison. You are gonna s- spend the rest of your life until they execute you on death row. And all the horrors that you've gone through, to come out of that, and to come out of that with a purpose of being a nice person and learning how to speak and learning how to speak clearly and confidently. Like, there's a lesson in that that's at a... I mean, I mean, this is almost like at a, at a religious level. I mean, you talk about someone who's created a diamond from pressure. I mean, that's what you've done. What you've done is you've, you've figured out a way to, despite all this raging hurricane of emotion that goes through your mind that's causes you to cry when you think about these things, you can express yourself in a very clear way that lets people at just... at least peer through the window into what you've experienced in your life. And it'll... It, it can give people a perspective that they're just... It's very, very rare that someone gets fucked over in life as bad as you did. Very, very rare. And it's even more rare to come through at the end with a sense of purpose.
- NYNick Yarris
Every day of my life, someone writes me and tells me they didn't kill themselves today. Did you know that?... every day, man. That is, stock drugs. There's a young man living in my house named Zach Kers. He's, uh, a really good friend of mine. He really changed his whole life since meeting me. Uh, even my close friends have told me that I've changed their life. And I appreciate it because I recognize, um, a lot of times it's the good within them that's resonating. And I'm proud of the fact that I have sat and listened to the words I kinda deserve for what I've tried. And I- I'm gonna learn in the future to accept the graces that you just did for me, because in the past I always tried to, as you see, diminish it. I have worked very hard, Joe. I have worked very hard to c- craft, um, my work into writing. And like your drawings, I was so proud of having a number one bestseller in, uh, my first book. And I was so proud of using my talent as a writer to then articulate what it's like to lose a baby and my journey through her eyes, or to use, uh, this last effort in Monsters and Madmen to- to s- tell people it's okay to have a bigger secret than the one that people know you by and still live with it. And then, when it's right, you can share it. Or I've made a point that I'm done writing because I've accomplished all my work as a writer, and now I wanna do one thing well. I wanna help young students around the world take themselves seriously with their education. I did over 500 of them in schools all over England and Europe and stuff. I loved it, man. I got all these young lads and la- lasses to come back to me and show me degrees that they got when I showed them how important their education was. And I- I'm th- I really thrive in that environment because I think that's where everything still is for me. Somehow, like I'm that kid, you know, who won't let go of needing to still chase the good in my life. And I know there's bad things in the woods, and I know there's brilliant things in the woods. But I'm still willing to walk that path and find something meaningful, and that's what I- I came here to really say, is that I wanna make an impact with my words, but not overdo it. So, I don't wanna do, uh, any other podcast after this one, except for my friend Brian's, but I wanna do the meaningful thing without it having to be attached to the social media draw that has, uh, hurt my life so much.
- 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.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Yes, sir. …
- JRJoe Rogan
who knows how many human beings. I think one out of 100 is gonna be the type of person that wants to send a hateful message because it's easy, because they don't have to look you in the eyes when they do it. They don't have to feel any social consequences. They don't have to feel your pain when they insult you or- or, you know, say awful things about you or your family. They're doing it because they wanna affect you because they're hurting, and they're hurting for a very different reason than the way you're hurting. But this is what's wrong with social media, is 'cause human beings are not meant to communicate that way. We lose our humanity in this very shallow form of interaction, because-
- NYNick Yarris
Yes, sir.
- JRJoe Rogan
... all those parts... what's- what's important about people is looking them in the eyes, talking to them, hugging them, shaking their hand, communicating honestly. And anytime you- you're missing any of those pieces, when you communicate dishonestly, when you don't wanna shake someone's hand, when you don't wanna look them in the eye, when you don't wanna inter- inter- interact with them, when you don't care about them as a person, all those things leave you feeling like shit.
- NYNick Yarris
Amen.
- JRJoe Rogan
All those things.
- NYNick Yarris
That's true. You're right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, the- the social media is the worst form of it 'cause it's just text. You have to interpret it yourself. You don't know what the fuck is going on in their life. You don't know who they are, but you read that text and you absorb it personally.You absorb it personally and you take it in the worst possible form, and you, you feel that critique in your chest. You feel it. You feel it in your head.
- NYNick Yarris
I know. I guess I got caught up in this notion that I could just go be a normal guy and have a normal job and people would leave me alone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, they would if you weren't on social media.
- NYNick Yarris
And I, I, I've already entered that form, so I'm just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you don't have to stay in that form, but-
- NYNick Yarris
That's true.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but here's the thing. Even if you do use that form, you know what you can do? You just don't interact. You post-
- NYNick Yarris
That's what I was doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the thing.
- NYNick Yarris
That's what I said I was gonna do.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's hard for people to understand that are on the outside. They're like, "Well, you asshole. I love you. I want you to interact with me because I love you, you know, and I want you to recognize that I'm recognizing you." And I appreciate that from people, but they have to understand the volume of people that someone like you is dealing with.
- NYNick Yarris
That's what I try to convey. And I try very sincerely never to be ignorant to people. And, you know, it's, it's fucking mind-blowing, Joe, 'cause I had my mind made up and now I've realized that I do. And it all goes back to a conversation with my boy Jason Daley. Me and him were driving along the 405 one day and the film Fur- Fear of 13's about to come out. And I told him I didn't want it to come out. And he said, "You don't own that film. Every kid that's ever had a shitty childhood owns that film. Everybody who's got a broken marriage or a shitty life or is really struggling owns that film. If you fuck this up, I'll never be your friend again, man." And he was right. I don't own The Fear of 13 and I don't own really anything of it, but its message is so beautiful. I did what I could to tell my story because we're all living our life as an experience but we can only convey it as a memory. And I did beautifully for myself and I'm so proud of the effort I made. I don't care that the director robbed me, I'll make my way. I don't care what I went through to this moment because I truly appreciate the person who wrote me last night and said, "Two weeks ago, I was released from a mental hospital after trying to kill myself and my mom sat me down and made me watch a film. And, and now, in the last two weeks, I've been going to therapy and I'm getting my shit together." I don't own the film, Joe, and I don't own my message. I guess my message is taken on by the people who love me, or not.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- NYNick Yarris
And you're right, I'm not gonna be bothered by the negatives. I had a terrible experience with a stalker for 12 years who won't leave me alone and it cost me my daughter and a divorce. There's all kind of crazy stuff. So, it was really affecting me and my current wife and I didn't like it. But I think I'm gonna actually beat it, dude, and just hang around for a little bit longer and make you proud of me for what I do from here on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, don't worry about me, man.
- NYNick Yarris
No. Everyone that I love-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NYNick Yarris
... is gonna always be on that list, man. I've really just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, if that's what you use for motivation-
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's, that's great and there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but I think that what you can do and what you are doing is show that you can, you can overcome things. You can overcome horrible things. Some of the most horrible experiences a person could ever face, you can overcome them, and you have. And those messages, they give people inspiration. And inspiration is one of the greatest things you can give a person.
- NYNick Yarris
I know that, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or inspire-
- NYNick Yarris
You inspired me today.
- 1:15:00 – 1:17:42
Maybe I- …
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not an $11 phone.
- NYNick Yarris
All right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Come on, man, that's a regular Android phone, right?
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah. No, it's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a good phone.
- NYNick Yarris
It- it's, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's thin as shit.
- NYNick Yarris
... one of these-
- JRJoe Rogan
It thinks it's like a wafer.
- NYNick Yarris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
These... I mean, look, if you had this phone fucking 10 years ago, people would think you were a wizard.
- NYNick Yarris
Yeah, man. If you're in the fifth century, of course you would be.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, that phone-
- NYNick Yarris
All right, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
... I'm sure has a voice recorder.
- NYNick Yarris
... Joe, you know you're kicking me into this, right? And I'm gonna have to respond because of the way I've always been wired. I'm going to do this then. I am.
Episode duration: 1:44:51
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