Amanda Kloots, LIVE YOUR LIFE: My Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero

[2:02]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zoe Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to: Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. Listeners, if you enjoy this podcast, I promise you will love my new audiobook, For Moms Don't Have Time to: A Quarantine Anthology. It's not about the quarantine, but a lot of the essays were written during that time about other things that moms don't have time to do or other busy people. Things like reading, eating, working out, breathing, having sex,

[2:59]Amanda Kloots: and 60 bestselling and notable authors wrote essays. All those authors have been on this very podcast. So if you like to listen to my conversations, if you want to get to know these authors better, I read the audiobook myself. Check it out on Audible, Moms Don't Have Time To, a quarantine anthology. Again, Audible audiobook. Go listen to it. It's like sixty minute podcasts. I hope you enjoy. Special

[3:22]Zibby Owens: announcement. I am teaming up with Katie Couric Media's Wake Up Call and Random House to give away 100 copies of the book Stranger Care by Sarah Centillis. I'm really excited about this. Here's a little about Sarah's book, and we collectively are giving away a 100 copies. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Santillis and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is the child's reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives even if it means most likely having to give the child back. Stranger care is an illuminating read, and Sarah will be on this podcast soon. So if you would like to enter for a chance to win, please go to the link in the episode description from right where you clicked on it and enter your email address first and last name. By doing so you're agreeing to the sweepstakes official rules and agree to receive communications and special offers from Katie Couric's wake up call and moms don't have time to read books. Thank you for doing it and enter to win today. Just go back to the episode description. Thanks again. Amanda Klutz is the author of Live Your Life, My Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero. Amanda is a co host on CBS daytime talk show The Talk and a celebrity fitness instructor and owner of AK Fitness.

[4:47]Amanda Kloots: Amanda lives in Los Angeles with her son Elvis. Welcome, Amanda. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here. This is so crazy for me because I've listened to your audio book. So I feel like your voice is like in my head now. And now here you are again, and also in the flesh on Zoom. So it's very cool. Yes. I've been listening to little bits of the audio book too, just because you do it and then you're like, I hope that turned out okay. So I've been listening to my own voice as well, actually. There was literally one small section. I was like, Kind of sounds like she has a cold here. I wonder if she's getting some allergies. No, it was just through the tears, you know? It was more so that. That audiobook was very hard to do. Knew it would be hard, but it was brutal. Did you go in somewhere to do it or could you do it at home or? I went to a recording studio. So you were kind of like in a black box all by yourself. Everything was over Zoom with the director and the sound mixer. And so, yeah, you were reading the story aloud, which I've never done because when you write it, it's all you're just typing. So I was reading it aloud to myself in a black room. So it got pretty, yeah, pretty emotional. Wow, that does not sound like fun. Well, I'm even more impressed that you managed to pull it off. Thank you. Okay. So I'm sure most people know your story, but if you wouldn't mind just explaining what even made you want to write a book and what the gist of the story is about for those who might not have heard about your experience with Nick and COVID and everything and Elvis and the whole, you know, story that you write about so beautifully. Yeah. Well, I didn't even think about writing a book, to be honest. I got an email from Lisa Sharkey at HarperCollins, who had taken some of my fitness classes and is a friend of my best friend. And she said to me, I'm one of the women that is singing every day and praying every day and watching everything every day. And she said, I want you to write this down. It needs to be written down. You need to write this memoir. And she sort of championed that idea. And what I really appreciated at the time, because it was in June, she said, Amanda, I don't care how it ends. It's important for you to write this down. I just feel it. And I can't thank her enough for doing that because in writing it, not only was it like therapy for me, so cathartic just to take everything that was in my head and put it on a page, but it is Nick's story and he now knows his story and it's in the dedication, but now Elvis has his story. And I'm grateful that one day Elvis will be able to read this and have all of the details that I'm sure I will forget. You know, life goes on and you forget, okay, wait, that note was 10:00 on the eighteenth or, you know what I mean? Like, you forget the details. As a son who loses his father and won't remember anything, I think it's so important that he'll have all of that, all of those minuscule things that he would ask me. What did the doctor say after that, mom? And now he has it. So I'm really grateful for that. And I think when readers read this book, you're expecting maybe what you think the story is because you followed me on Instagram and followed what I was sharing at the time. But what it really is, is it's the full honest truth. And you really learn all about Nick and I, our romance, our love story, my family, why we are who we are, why we believe what we believe. And there's a lot of beautiful, happy, joyous moments within this book. It's not just a sad story. No, not at all. I mean, it's so relatable. I think that's what made it so much even better than if you had said like everything was perfect and then this happened. Right? Because everyone out there can relate to you know, even when you talked about whether or not you should move to LA and Nick wanted to move to LA, but you had just gotten set up and your parents were across the hall. And I'm literally I'm listening. I'm being like, oh, maybe she shouldn't have like, are you sure she's like, why did she say yes? Why is she doing this? Like, I don't think I'm as nice as you or something. I feel like I would have been like, I'm gonna just stay right here. Thank you. You know? Well, don't- I mean, it was a year of fighting about that. I mean, it was not- I didn't just give in because that's not my personality either. But, you know, eventually it just came down to Nick was just so miserable in New York. And, you know, part of marriage is that like, Okay, let's do this. Let's try it. It's a safe move at the moment. We have a friend that's offering us a home to live in. So if utterly fails, New York doesn't go anywhere. New York never changes in a way. So I knew that we had like that security blanket, you know? I think that's the only reason why I eventually gave in. It's true. No, I lived in LA for two years after college and the whole time I was like, oh gosh, I'm missing so much. And then I would go visit and I'm like, everything is exactly the same. Like, and then I came back two years later and it was as if I had been gone for like the weekend, right? So it's just, but then I had gained all these new amazing experiences and I knew how to like use the Thomas guy to get myself around LA and I was like, this is amazing. I can really actually drive now without getting in an accident. You know, New York, it's like a beacon and it'll always, you know, no matter what it goes through. Yes. Right. Well, and I think that's such a lesson to remember in life, right? Because, you know, I lived in New York for nineteen years and a lot of people would be like, yeah, I can get why you just wanted to stay put. That's your home. But also, life is full of these adventures. You either take them, you can always go back. You know what I mean? New York, whatever city you're moving from, you can always go back if it doesn't work out. It's risky, yes. And some people hate taking risk and it is scary to be risky, but it just, you know, there's always the option of going back to right where you were. Very true. Only enhanced, really. Right. By the way Exactly. Well, I was just going to say that. Or maybe, I mean, with certainly new experiences. When I lived out there, by the way, I lived in Laurel Canyon. When you were like, all the Laurel Canyon chants and cheers and all the references, I was like, oh my gosh, I lived on Wonderland. So it's just crazy. My god. Oh, yeah. It's not it's not lost on you. People are so many times people are like, I've lived in California my whole life. Should I be contemplating about moving to Laurel Canyon? What is this community? I did not know this community existed within LA. I was like, I've never lived anywhere other than Laurel Canyon, so I can't compare it. But yeah, this is Laurel Canyon. I mean, just the other night, was at another community music night in somebody's backyard, and it was like everyone's on their blankets and, you know, wearing their flannels and there's, you know, just local musicians playing music. It's beautiful. I'd never made it. I never heard about any music. I think I just was like I was so young and I was like alone most of the time because the guy I was dating at the time was always at work. I was like in this house that smelled of somebody's, like, dead cats and, you know, there were all these weird sounds. And I was like, I don't know. Maybe I need to go back to Manhattan. Oh, no. I know. I wish I had, like, stuck it out. I ended up moving back to West Hollywood and getting all the chaos that I had missed. So Yes. Anyway. But one of one of the things. So okay. So you wrote this whole journal. And as you said, you were afraid you might forget some of the details because, yes, there's all this about your relationship. And by the way, also I meant to say so great for you to describe the fact that you were married before when you met Nick, that he helped you sort of get past that whole thing and, like, was the shoulder you cried on and then became your next relationship and that wasn't so obvious at times and you broke up and got back together and there was a jump rope involved and whatever. So I'm really glad that you went there and didn't, again, like sugarcoat anything. But in terms of the hospital stuff, I mean, as I mentioned, you know, I lost my mother-in-law. She was in the hospital for six weeks and I already had forgotten so much that when I read your story, I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot dialysis. I forgot when like the people, the nurses and doctors, that is exactly what they would say on the phone, like verbatim, how you described it. And I was like, this is crazy. It's like someone took my own experience that I already kind of forgot and just like put it down and reminded me. And anyway, I'm so glad you did that. So tell me a little even like about writing it, about living it, like Yeah. Well, I think, you know, that's one of the reasons why I'm so grateful that we kind of it wasn't again, this was me being green because I'd never written a book, but Harper Collins was like, Okay, this is your manuscript due date. And Anna was like, This is an insane sister. Like most people get a year to write a book and they're giving us less than six months. But now again, in retrospect, I couldn't write this book now because exactly what you just said. I wouldn't remember all of these things. And when I started writing two weeks after Nick passed, was in Ohio and I would just start writing after I put Elvis down for bed, mostly because it was quiet in the house and I just wanted something to do, but also because I knew there were things that were stored in my brain. And when you are in a hospital battle, and I'm sure you can attest to this, you know everything. Everything is just like that you know the numbers where they should be, you know the medications where they should be, you know what the wires are, what the machines are, when he was on that machine, when he was off that machine, when they put him on a new machine, when they took him off that machine. I mean, it was just like in my head, I didn't have really anything written down because I just kind of have a photographic memory in that way. And so I knew have to, there are some things I have got to start writing on a piece of paper because I don't want to forget it. And I would. Like if I tried to write this right now, and even listening to the audiobook, I was like, Damn, yeah, I remembered a lot of stuff. But I'm so glad that it's there because of that exact reason. You don't want to forget all of those things that were a part of it. And they were. Every machine, every number, every time I sat in that room and then just stare at the numbers and the ups and the downs and the medicines and the levels. And it's like that is that battle of being with your person in the hospital, whether pandemic, not pandemic, it's part of it, you know, as the person. Even like your isolation, as you were going through this was like, you know, when I read it, I was like, how? Like, that's like unconscionable that she would have to be alone with Elvis. Like, well, you know, in the beginning, for instance, like after he died for two, you know, before your brother, you know, before people came and you could actually, I mean, was it so nice, everybody coming to your aid. Yeah. But no, nobody would come. And we were living. I was living on my good friend Zach Braff's property, but he wouldn't dare and nor should he have at that time because, hello, Nick just got serious COVID diagnosis. So, he's not coming anywhere near me. But he was devastated because he's like, I can't do anything for you and that you're right there. And yet I have to literally stay completely away from you because I you know what I mean? Like nobody could get it. So it was devastating. And I literally was just like at home inside all day with a 10 old trying to survive talking to the hospital, raising him, working on my fitness business at the same time. It was unfathomable because in no other time would that ever happen.

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[20:06]Amanda Kloots: I mean, yeah, even when, like, when Susan died after six weeks, we were alone here because, like, we had traveled. We had to travel down to Duke, and we came back, and then we had to quarantine. And, like, I I have four kids. I couldn't see my kids. Like, we were alone. Like, there was no support. Like, it and Kyle and his sister, of course, were just like beyond devastated. And I was also devastated, but she wasn't my own mother. So I was the one who had to be like, you know, making sure we ate and people would leave like flowers outside of the gate, sort of like on the little thing where you buzz the gate, you know, because they couldn't come in. It was crazy. It's so crazy looking back, like how the isolation affected the grief and how it is going forward. Right? And just the trauma of the illness, you know, if she is like, I don't know. I just keep going back to like, what is it about? I mean, obviously, any death is horrible and any death at a young age, but there is something just so particularly awful about this and so unique to COVID. I feel like that surviving it just was just a what I don't know. I don't even have anything to say about it. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It was a time and I think we now a year later, thank God we're in a completely different place and almost through it. But I often am like, Don't forget where we were a year ago. We were still not leaving our homes, barely going anywhere. I mean, it was a completely different world even a year ago. And how fast that has changed, you know, it's crazy. It's crazy. Because then, of course, it's like, what next? But anyway, I also loved how you were sort of pivoting with your business at the same time and being an entrepreneur and figuring out a way to do it and having friends involved and really moving on to the sort of online business and being able to rely on your sort of happy self care, if you will, right? Like that you were doing squats in the parking lot with Elvis while he's in the hospital. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, at first I was like, how on earth is she doing this? Like, I would never work I feel like I worked out for like two months or something. So tell me a little bit about even running a business throughout this whole thing. Well, running a business, I didn't really have an option. Nick was in the hospital. He had lost his job to COVID. If he even got out of the hospital, he still wouldn't have had a job. So I was the only breadwinner. I was the only one that was making income. There was not an option for me to not work. And luckily, my job was easily put on the internet and it was something that could make money. And at the time we had, I knew, bills to pay, a mortgage to pay. We had just bought a new home, and we had rent still in New York, and Nick wasn't working. We had a car payment. How are you supposed to pay your bills? So it wasn't an option to not work. But luckily, I love fitness. I love my company that I created. I love working out. It is my go to mental health savior. So it was never like a, Oh, I wish I didn't have to go to work. It was more so like, When do I get to film something today so that I work so that I feel better? Wow. Well, I'm glad you kind of found your thing. You know, it's like, it's always so amazing. So what's happened since the end of the book? Like what's like the real epilogue in your life? Because now I want to know like everything. And I've been on your Instagram, of course, not to be like a stalker or whatever, but what's like the conclusion? Like how do you feel even looking back and what are you doing with your life now and all of that good stuff? Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, it's crazy to think that it's been almost a year since Nick passed. You know, honestly, the epilogue is still sort of exactly kind of how it ends in the book. You know, I'm still working every day. I'm just trying to be the best mom I can be to Elvis, building strength every day, moving forward every day because I know that's what Nick would want me to do. Just trying to pave this new way, trying to reinvent myself yet again, which is something I've had to do many times in my life. So it's not anything new, but yet scary. Especially coming out of the pandemic, scary. And so I think it's just all of that, working here at The Talk and running all the other businesses that I run, trying to find time for everything and manage that and also give myself some self care time. So it's just all of that. Just that. And how is it going? What's it like working at The Talk? How is that? Do you love it? Is it amazing? Oh, I love it. It's been such a saving grace. You know, it feels very much like I'm doing a Broadway show, which is what I did for seventeen years in New York. I get to drive on to this beautiful studio lot, get my hair and makeup done, put my costume on and go out and do a show. And then that show is literally just talking to adults about fun topics, which is what I don't get to do anymore at home because when I'm at home, it's just me and Elvis and we talk about Chast Trucks or Baby Sharks. So I feel so lucky because I have this outlet where so much of my life has been performing and entertaining and TV and film. And now I just get to do it on this other new level, which I never expected to get to do, but it's also not something that's super far from my wheelhouse. So I love it. It's been such a joy and literally has, I think, saved me in a huge way. Sometimes people are like, how do you have time to do a podcast like every day of the week? And I'm like, this is my favorite time. I mean, not that I don't love my kids and my husband and, you know, my life, know, I'm very lucky and everything, but like, it's pretty great to come in here and close the door and be like, ah, now I get to talk about someone's emotions and I get to hear from someone who's gone through something similar who I would never meet in the course of my daily life and who knows exactly an experience that I've had or somebody totally different who's had an experience I'll never have and I get to learn about that. And it's like, I don't know. Interviewing is like the greatest thing. I feel like everybody's Yeah. No, you're right. It's so true because every day I'm meeting all of these people that I would never get a chance to meet. And because we're on this talk show platform, everyone's just kind of at ease. And so it's crazy. Yeah. One day I'm talking to Tom Selleck. It's like, what? But like, he's talking to you like it's normal. And you're like, I know this is not normal, but thanks for talking to me like it's normal. You know? You know, that's how I feel. I mean, for me, in general are like rock stars. You know, they're like the coolest people ever. So my version of Tom Selleck might be like Mitch Album, you know, like, wait, Mitch is sort of in my library now and I'm sitting here talking to him after like, you know, it's just the it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. Totally. It is a saving grace. And I do think, and I don't know how you feel about this, that, you know, once you've gone through a loss or something similar or something traumatic or something, you know, you're open to human connection on a whole new level. You know what I mean? Like, it's there's the superficial there's like no time for the superficial anymore. You know, like, I'm just going to like get right to it at this point. Oh, it's so true. I said that the other day when I was talking to somebody about whenever I start dating again or entering that whole world, it's like, you know what? When that happens, when that time comes, I can't deal with any- When you've gone through hard trauma in your life, I appreciate just like, I just want honesty. Bring me your dirty laundry. I can't play games. I don't have time for it. I want you to have kids. I want you to go through a divorce. I want you to had a life full of life. Please come to me with lots of things happening and going on because I think it just cuts that perfection, things that we have to feel like we have to do. And I can't have that right now in my life. I totally get it. It's like moms don't have time to date, right? Yeah. No, there's no time. No time. Do you like me? Great. Let's go out for dinner. No pleasantries needed. I don't need pleasant ries. My gosh, my sister-in-law is single after seven years and she's just, she's on Bumble now and I was like, Oh, let me see how that works. And she's been like showing me, I'm like, This is crazy. There's like a whole another world of etiquette and all of that. I know. I'm not looking forward to those apps. I'm hoping that sure you will be fine. I'm sure you will be Not that I have anything against them. It's just it's exactly what you just said. It's like a whole new realm that I am not ready for that, you know, realm. Oh my gosh. So on the book writing front, what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Well, you know, I would just say Anna and I, as first time authors, we really just wrote. You know what I mean? We weren't thinking too much about what we should be doing, what typically is done, how memoirs usually are formed. We were really just, we got on our vibe, on our plane, and did it our way. And we had a wonderful editor who was very lenient with us and let that happen organically. And I would just say that would be my advice, just to do you. Don't try to copy anything that you've done or you've seen before. Write your story and get it on a piece of paper because I think that's the most important part, to start and write your own story. So true. I noticed though that you did play a lot with time and flashbacks. Is that the way it just came out as you wrote it? Or did you do that later? Well, we did that because that's what I was doing on Instagram. I started in the midst of telling what was going on with Nick. I would start giving, I'm going tell you guys a story about Nick. I think I called him Nick Stories. Genius. Creative title. But I would share little Nick snippets of things that we did together, how we met, or funny stories about Nick because I did it just so that I could start sharing about who he was because so many people were singing his music and praying for him and supporting us every day. I just thought, maybe people want a little inside info on who they're praying for every day. They might want to know who this man is, why he likes music, why he wrote this song. So when we started writing the book, we just were like, well, naturally, we'll include these flashbacks like I was doing on Instagram through the process and then adding in more things that I remembered and wanted to share to give even more backstory on why we were doing certain things, why I was making certain choices, why I was saying certain things to him in the hospital so that you had some substance to all of that. Well, it worked really well. I mean, just from a And narrative then from the content side, just, you know, I'm so glad that you persevered and took the time when you did to write it down because it's there not just for you and Elvis and Nick, really, but for all of us to feel your pain and feel the joy you had at times and also just to keep him alive in our minds and introduce him to people who would never have met him. So now he sort of lives, takes mental space in my mind. And how great is that, that you could do that? It's like magic. I love that because that makes me feel like his legacy will always live on and his name will always be talked about. And, you know, I think that's a beautiful thing. Knowing Nick, he would be like, people are still talking about me. That's cool. You would like that. You know, he's an actor. You have an ego. We all do. So I think he would enjoy that his name lives on for sure. Well, Amanda, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and I just really appreciate it. It was really nice to chat with you. Thank you. So nice to meet you, Zibby. Bye. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetimetoreadbooks. Also sign up for my newsletter at ziviowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.