By Lilly Lawrence/Getty Images.
It was a full day of riveting testimony, given by a disgraced lackey of one of America’s most powerful people, in front of a committee whose members wore their biases on their sleeves.
Yes! Jordyn Woods appeared on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch show, Red Table Talk, on Friday to discuss the ongoing infidelity scandal currently engulfing the greater Jenner-Kardashian universe. You may know the story by now: Woods, the 21-year-old longtime best friend of Kylie Jenner, was reportedly seen kissing Tristan Thompson, the father of Khloé Kardashian’s baby, at a party. She went on Pinkett Smith’s show to clear her name, because the host is an old family friend. Woods’s late father worked on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where he and Will Smith became friends, as Pinkett Smith explained at the top of the episode. Pinkett-Smith’s son Jaden Smith introduced Jenner and Woods in school. After all that, Woods got to the heart of the matter, namely denying that anything more had happened between her and Thompson. (Meanwhile, Thompson, who has been caught on camera in situations like this before, hasn’t been required to comment or attempt to clear his name because of systemic sexism, I guess. His only action on social media since was a tweet that said ”FAKE NEWS” that was quickly deleted.)
Watching Woods’s emotional recounting gave me terrible deja vu—all the way back to Wednesday and the hours of testimony Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer, gave before the House Intelligence Committee. Comparing the two might flatten out some nuance as well as their very different stakes, but the circumstances of each case—and what made them compelling television in the year 2019—were curiously similar.
For starters, they were both teased to hell, and everyone in America this side of Gwyneth Paltrow has strong opinions about one, the other, or both. That’s all in part because Cohen and Woods were both the right-hand people to two of the most powerful, rich reality television stars. They depended on their famous counterparts for status and livelihood, and were defenestrated after messing up. Cohen was Trump’s fixer, but he flipped on Trump, was convicted of several crimes, and sentenced to three years in jail. Woods lived in Jenner’s home before she betrayed the family’s trust. Though Cohen and Woods were both contrite, they’re unreliable narrators, both admitting to not being truthful in the past.
They both lost some control of the narrative when their reality TV ex-friends publicly slammed their claims. President Trump tweeted, “Michael Cohen’s book manuscript shows that he committed perjury on a scale not seen before,” though Cohen claimed repeatedly that, despite a book deal, he never worked on a manuscript. Kardashian tweeted that Woods had not reached out to her, though Woods said she had. Kardashian also said that it was not Thompson’s many prior incidents of alleged unfaithfulness that broke up the relationship, but Woods. (At risk of getting too she-said, she-said about all this: Woods said she doesn’t think she was responsible for the break up but that “this situation may have made it harder for her to want to be with him.”) Kardashian played herself here a little; her mentions are filled with questions about Thompson, not Woods.
The situations are also, of course, nothing alike. Woods’s Red Table Talk appearance was a play for acquittal in the court of public opinion. Cohen’s ship has pretty much sailed on those seas, but his comments made on record have potential legal implications for the president, and so the whole country. Cohen was already convicted of actual crimes that affected not just himself and his boss, but possibly the entire United States. Woods’s drama is a family one. Her actions affect herself, the Kardasho-Jenners, and apparently the Pinkett-Smiths—and also a television show that could frankly really use this kind of storyline to hold its grasp on relevance for another season.
Watching Woods’s confessions made both the pleasure and the futility of Cohen’s even more clear. The stakes were different, but the grotesque entertainment value was similar. They merged into one display of courtroom drama not only because they transpired just two days apart, but also because they dealt in power, money, lies, deceit, and a few very familiar faces.
In the end, from the viewer’s perspective, both televised testimonials were compulsively watchable in a way that served to bolster opinions previously arrived upon. Felt like Woods is a 21-year-old young person who made a mistake that she’ll be paying for and we should treat her situation with compassion? Her testimony was compelling. Felt like she’s a home-wrecking snake emoji? Then she played the victim. Felt like Cohen is a career shade artist who did bad things for the now-president? Then his testimony was compelling. Felt like Cohen is a career shade artist who did bad things for the now-president, but the now-president had no idea? Then his testimony was garbage.
At least, in Cohen’s case, it doesn’t matter how he came across, but it matters if laws were broken.
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