John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I am John Shegerian, and I am so honored to have with us today Kaila Methven. She is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Madame Methven. Welcome to the Impact podcast, Kaila.

Kaila Methven: Thank you so much. Thank you for welcoming me. How are you today?

John: I am great today and there are so many important topics for us to go into but before we get into all the great things you’re doing and your life as an entrepreneur CEO. I want you first to share your journey leading up to becoming a CEO philanthropist and impact player in this world.

Kaila: Sure. Where do you want me to start the day I was born?

John: Where you grew up, tell me about growing up.

Kaila: All right. Well

John: Where you from?

Kaila: Wow, I feel like I am really being interviewed for like the first time here. I love it. So I was born in Santa Monica and I grew up in LA, Beverly Hills.

John: Okay.

Kaila: You probably call me your Beverly Hills Queen for everyone to Beverly Hills High. Verdejo and my mother sadly were very very sick. She was an alcoholic and she very sadly passed away when I was 14 after that, I had the choice of either foster care an orphanage or meeting my father for the first time in my life. So I grew up with my mother by myself. So it was very, it was not a difficult childhood. It was always in and out of hospitals, my mother had cirrhosis of the liver due to the fact that she was an alcoholic. So it was really hard for me as a kid growing up, I lived in seven countries, I was home-schooled most the time, I did not really have a normal Christmas or Thanksgiving everything was kind of like the kind of off.

John: Right.

Kaila: I did have a stepfather. He was a little bit older than me. He is 10 years older than me. I think this day. So yes, I guess my mom likes them young, it was a good role model, I mean, I don’t think it was the greatest but he did what he could and but my mom passed away and after I moved to France and my dad was very Muslim extremists. He is one of those guys that pray five times daily. Everyone wears all the girls cover themselves completely and the household, they do Ramadan they go to Temple every Friday. So yes, that really was a very big culture shock to me, and I respect everyone’s culture and what they do and everyone’s different beliefs and everything. But it was a shock in the way that, sorry, I am just gonna drink some water, it is just a shock in the way of a girl losing her mother at the age of 14 at prime age when you are developing hormones are rising and already your mom’s already a little bit off due to the meds and all the hospitals so you can only imagine, you know her passing away and then three days later. It is like, okay you are off on a plane. You do not speak French. You have never met your father, and you are about to go live with a family you have never met. So here I am like I am, I remember on the airplane wearing some Abercrombie & Fitch like shorts and a t-shirt and a backpack and I am like there was my luggage ready to go and I remember getting off the plane in the first thing I said to myself was holy shit. It is fucking cold here. That was the first thing I said when I got off the plane. Wow. It is really cold because as a California girl, I have always my mother and I have always gone to the Bahamas, Mexico, Hawaii.

John: Everything was warm for your life up until then until you got hit with it. Wow.

Kaila: Mother, it is cold and you do not speak the language. So I am kind of like at my death road here and then on top of it I meet my dad and he is wearing a Jilla Bob from head to toe and I am like, that is my dad? and so that he takes me home and then I am like I go home to a one-bedroom apartment not even in Paris in the suburbs of Paris and there is I have like four brothers and sisters like running around that are just toddlers and I am like, where is my room.

John: I feel like we need to get jacked up a toll on this interview because he is like, this is the opening of one of his movies like this is amazing. I mean what the heck.

Kaila: Your better it gets better.

John: Go on. Keep going.

Kaila: I can not, I am like, all right. So where is my room, like this is crazy and they are like oh, no, you are gonna sleep on a mat and in the kitchen or in the living room, we do not have room for you. That is what Arabs do we just you know all live together and sleep on the floor and I am like, oh, okay. I am like, one bathroom for nine people. Great, this is fun.

John: Oh, boy.

Kaila: Now and I was really crying very depressed. This is my mother it was really hard growing up. I was counting the days until I could get emancipated. I tried many times my dad hit me every time I tried to get him at the pated finally the day I had the night. I turned 18 literally gone at the taxi, lifted up my middle finger and I never turned back.

John: So that was just that for clarity. That was four years of hell. Four years.

Kaila: Four years of hell. Yes. My dad was very abusive. They did not like my art. They believed that women who studied art went to the devil. They did not believe in my success. They did not believe that women could do anything if they believe that I was basically made to sit here and just like babies, clean and cook and I was like fuck that I am going out on the world. I am making a difference. I am changing lives. I am going to become an amazing lingerie designer and that was it. So that was always like that was never really my dream at first was to become a lawyer but how I did not speak the language, it changed. So I went to the All American School of Paris.

John: Right.

Kaila: I finished up high school there and then I went on to S Mode which was my fashion school and it is like they are very intense. It is like getting into the yale of fashion.

John: Really in Paris. Yes?

Kaila: Yes and I did not even know a lot of people are gone there John Galliano, John Charles, [inaudible] Jacques. Who else is gone there?

John: It is the Yale of fashion. Like you said. It is the place to be.

Kaila: It is the place to be. Yes.

John: And you are on your own at this time. You are on your own.

Kaila: Yes, so does for my self. I was working like five jobs. I worked at a McDonald’s. I worked at Sephora. I worked at a flea market. I worked at a Boulangerie, which is basically a bakery at 5 a.m., and every day to get to work in from school, it would take me an hour and a half by train. So I was commuting every day to work three hours. So my day in my daily life was this basically wake up. I would wake up probably around 4 o’clock get ready to shower. I would be at the bakery or wherever by 5, I would work probably until 8:30, and then I would take the train my classes started at 11 in University and they were from 11:00 until 5:00, and then after that, I would then go to work again at McDonald’s.

John: Oh my gosh.

Kaila: Yes, and then after that, I would go to work again from probably from six to nine or six to ten then take an hour and a half train ride home. Then I would do my homework until 3:30, and then my day would start again. So I was literally on no sleep for like three years.

John: Kaila, but this is fascinating. Where did you have this Burning survival mission DNA? Where did it come from?

Kaila: I always just had this feeling, my mom made me promise to be somebody and be somewhere and just help people and my mission is really is to God. It is just too you know, I really feel for so many people out there that do not have a roof over that their head or who are insecure of their gender or who are not able to have a job because of their sexuality or their race or their drug addiction or because they have been abused as children or as adults, I feel for the world that who was suffered and open in pain because I have been in pain. But the one thing that my mother has always said is, do not be like Mom, do not leave this world the way I did. She said let people remember you and it is in such an important voice that you have changed the world, so that is always been my mission and I was eight years old and when she said that, I did not say it earlier, but my mom committed suicide she didn’t leave a no she did not, we do not really, she did not leave me. She actually left me bankrupt for a little bit of time. So I had to pay off a little bit of her debts.

John: I did not ask her earlier, but I take it from just hearing this story. You were an only child.

Kaila: Yes, it was really hard.

John: It was you and her.

Kaila: Yes, and no one from my mom’s family wanted it to take me and my stepdad did not want me. So I really did not want to know the orphanage because they said I was most likely not going to get adopted because I was too old and I did not want to go into like, Foster because I was scared. So I chose to meet my father. I spoke French after about a year and a half, usually, when you are younger you can usually take all languages faster. So I was able to start working probably by the age of 15. I remember I worked, two jobs a day and I went to school and so I am getting very emotional here.

John: So out of all this pain and suffering you rebirth yourself as someone who was going to do good in so many ways if you got through this and you knew you were going to get through this.

Kaila: Yes, I was not going to let myself die. Like I knew a part of me died because my mother passed away. So he felt a part of you is already gone, but I knew that I could walk out 10 times stronger, and I could help a million times better, and I knew that even though it took me time and energy and all my blood and sweat and tears and a lot of my money. I thought and I woke up every day fighting and I cried so many times today and I am even crying right now because I really really wanted to make everyone in this world have a better place. I always wanted to make women feel important. So it is first started off with the boulangerie. So let us go back to

John: let’s go back to school and I am going to just tell you something. I got to just take a pause here for listeners who just joined us. This is a very very important episode of the Impact podcast. We have got Kaila Methven here and she is a CEO and founder of Madame Methven. You could find her at www.madamemethven.com.Madame with an E. Methven.com. Kaila, I am 57 years old and I have been doing this podcast since 2007 and I have met literally had thousands of guests on its I did not expect to hear what I have just heard and for you to be a Survivor and not only a Survivor and we are going to learn later in this podcast, a thriver of suicide, abuse, abandonment. I got to tell you I meet a lot of cool people who overcome a lot of things you have overcome a lot more of them almost anybody has ever heard. So I got to just say right here right now. I mean, I am blown away by what your backstory I did not expect any of that and I do not think our listeners expected any of that. So I got to just say I am blown away that you are here even just standing up today besides all the great things you’re going to get into that you are doing with your brand and everyone that you are helping. It is amazing.

Kaila: I am like in tears right now.

John: It is amazing. Take us now. You are in school at the Yale of fashion. Take it from there.

Kaila: Yes, very excited. So this is where the blossoming were the row starts to open. Right? So finally my rose starts to flutter and I am feeling happy. I finally got an apartment. I live alone. I am not going home to an abusive family anymore that hits me, you know like I am happy. I am not dealing with any rate of my dad’s racist judgment against me I am not being blown away for being a woman, and studying so I am happy. I am in my studio. I am working I get to come home and sleep soundly and I have a thousand people around me every day. So this is like a great moment in my life. So this moment I also am a moment where a lot of people do not know is they always say, oh my God, she kills millions of birds. She is the cave Sierra’s like and what most people do not know is that my trust and my family actually, I am on my mother’s side really do hate me due to the fact that I am Arab and a quarter black. So I will actually at the same time while I was going into University. I was also taking my trustees to court, to win over my money. So my money was not given to me. My money was not handed to me. I was spent two years in court fighting them.

John: In the United States?

Kaila: No, in France.

John: In France, you were fighting them. Oh, wow.

Kaila: Yes. It was crazy.

John: Wow to be that young, to be in a court battle, and also putting yourself through fashion school. I can not even imagine.

Kaila: Yes, that was crazy, so but it was blossoming. I mean things were going well, I was making great friends. Finally, after all the years I felt free I was discovering who I was as a woman I was learning who Kaila was I was creating with my hands. I was drawing. I was creating, I was making myself feel beautiful. I was finally my heart stopped crying. I would be able to come home and paint I was able to come home and draw and so these incredible things that I was able to now, today dress on celebrities was heard about that later, but you know, it was amazing I was going out every day and having drinks either with my not co-workers. But how do you say this? I guess your fellow students’ fellow colleagues. Yes, there and we are all from different areas of the world. It was really amazing people were from China the peace some people were from Russia, some people from Africa some people were from, it was amazing. So you are just sitting there with different people like from all over the world and you are sitting there just learning all these different languages and cultures of we are all studying the same thing and we are all creative and they all have different stories as well and like most creative people. They all have very interesting lives and we all connected and it was just a real blast and I made some I have to say my University years were probably some of the best years of my life, and I think everyone is because it is the parties the fun times, the creativity, the friendships you gain discovering yourself who you are. It was fun, it was really a lot of fun, and I just remember just getting up and being happy to go to school every day because I was doing something I finally loved again ever since my mom died.

John: It was like-minded people for the first time who accepted you for who you were.

Kaila: Yes. I did not have to pretend to be anyone. I did not have to quieter stood in the corner. I did not have to be that girl. I just got to be me and it was such an honor, and this is comes back to me also with the whole LGBT thing is why I relate so much to this community is I know what it’s like to have your mouth shut up for so many years and not be you and not feel like you are in your body or in your space or where you should be or where you belong and how to feel treated differently or how to be shocked that people do not accept you for who you are. All out of that comes from you know from living with my mother than going to live with my father he know is like I understand their sufferance in their pain for anyways, moving forward. I graduate then I go study my masters in China. Study my masters in China had a great time there.

John: Where were you in China?

Kaila: In Shanghai? Yes, I did a master’s in art there. That was a blast as well as my best friend Elias. Elias is now in Sweden. He has got his own line. Yes, we were together through as mode then went to China together best friends.

John: Awesome.

Kaila: Yes, that was great, and then from there, best friends again went to Polimoda the School of Versace.

John: Where was that?

Kaila: In Italy, Florence.

John: Oh boy and how old were you now like what is your age range at this point?

Kaila: 17 until 19. I just turned 17, so I did a three-year course up to your bachelor’s and Master’s was one year, and then 21 my MBA.

John: Holy Toledo.

Kaila: I skipped the four grades when I was younger. So I think I did something like kindergarten and then I skipped fourth grade then I skip something like 8 and then I skipped one grade in high school.

John: So obviously you are off the charts in terms of intelligence. But you are also showing off the charts in terms of resilience. Let us be frank here Kaila. I mean like you are loaded for everything. I mean, you have got it all you have got the whole package and you were the one who found a way to put it together. I mean unreal so now you are 21. 21 or 22 and now what you’re just coming out of Italy.

Kaila: I worked for Vogue in New York.

John: Come on. How was that?

Kaila: I lived in Mulberry Lafayette. I had an apartment there. That was cool and I worked in Chelsea. I worked in the textile department. That was fun and I worked for Vogue but then sadly I got stuck in Hurricane Sandy and after like nine months I was like, I think the city has got a lot of you know, I did not have any roots there basically I had no friends. I had no family at their Roots at least in LA I did so after Hurricane Sandy when the lights turned on and I went through a really horrible like anxiety attack like a three days of no lights or anything. I came to LA, I just took my backpack, and the TV turned on and it was that movie Gigolo would what is his name? He is with the guy from Pretty Woman. He is so good-looking.

John: Richard Gere.

Kaila: Yes.

John: I love that you are so young. You do not even know Richard Gere. That is so cute actually.

Kaila: Sorry.

John: That is sweet. I like it. It is good and sweet.

Kaila: I was watching it and then TV turned out I was like, okay, that is a sign. I need to go back to LA. So now I am back in LA, since God knows when.

John: Wow.

Kaila: So I go back to LA and I end up staying in a hotel Tsukasa Venice sweets and some Venice Boulevard and it is literally like because I literally had nowhere to go. So I literally took the plane landed I was at hotel bookings.com and I was like boom bitch. I just booked that bird and exist back then so I was like a taxi take me there ended up being at the hotel at like 3 a.m. in the morning with a backpack. Hi, I just booked a room and it was like this cute little of cute little Boutique Hotel and then I wake up in the morning. I open the blinds and it is like I see people roller skating ice to the beach. I see all these amazing like the sunlight and I am like, oh my God, there are no more Dark Towers everywhere like in New York. So busy the city, and I was like wow, this is amazing. I am back to the roots of where I started. So the first thing I said is like God I need a drive again because I drove a vest spot in Paris and I took the train. So the first thing I said is I need a car. So when I got a car, I got a real apartment in Beverly Hills and I got a little studio in Downtown LA and I started creating my Couture dresses.

John: And you were all of 21 or 22 at this point? 23?

Kaila: 22 now.

John: 22 unbelievable. Okay. So now you start creating from scratch. Now, you are starting your fashion lines from scratch.

Kaila: From scratch. I said I am going to work for myself, as I interned for a lot of people in France like judge house across bushwhacked if you check in here comes a little bit. So I did it all I could from Chanel, Jean-Paul Gautier like I interned for like all the top brands, but then I said, okay. I am going to do my own fashion show because I had my first fashion show was at 23. So 22, I got my little Studio. I had one lady that was working for me. I had one of my court cases by then with my trustees. So I finally became like I had my money on the side.

John: You were emancipated.

Kaila: Yes. Finally, I got what I deserved.

John: Good for you.

Kaila: Thank you, and I hired a woman and I started just working slowly like in my little what would you call it, design room and I made a collection. It was called Latrodectus and it was named after the black widow spider and it basically after she finished fornicating with him. She eats him. So that was based on one of my first relationships because I found love in France and his name was, he looks like Lenny Kravitz and I am when I was 14 and we started dating when I was 16 and he was just gorgeous.

John: Lenny Kravitz is a good-looking guy by the way like just put that out there.

Kaila: Yes. He is really good looking. I do not know. He was this the dream Bourgeois Z. I mean it was a French was handsome. He had a motorcycle. It was snowing we are making love like in the middle of the streets of Paris and the snow and that is how I got into lingerie. By the way. It was because of him. I would wear lingerie non-stop to his house all the time.

John: How cute.

Kaila: So it started off basically as a sexual relationship and it turned into love and that is how I got into lingerie at the end of the day. So I would always come in with new lingerie. I was wearing Le Perla from agent provocateur to everyone I was there in every breath, and every time it was new lingerie.

John: Tell me what is going on. I love that. I want to understand the creative process. So you are wearing lingerie. It is a great point of your life. You are in love and you are in the city of lights, but when you are wearing the lingerie, you are saying I could do this better or this is just it is good but it is not great. Is that what is going through your mind back then is that the Genesis for creating your own line.

Kaila: Analysis, like I just felt so much power in the bedroom, like wearing one lingerie. I was like I am going to turn into every man’s fantasy so that they can never ever say no to a woman.

John: So what was the issue of empowerment lingerie equaled empowerment? Got it.

Kaila: I wanted to leave men with you know, like when you get married or when you have flashbacks you have like flashes in your head. It is like, I know that when I have flashes like for example of my mother, let us just say our mother like I remember the first time as she comes to my school on my first day of school. I remember the first time I rode a bike. I remember when she had this birthday party for me. I remember when she held me and she used to call me puppet. That was my nickname, and we would go strawberry hunting in the garden. I know that sounds stupid.

John: No because you are talking about what become for all of us.

Kaila: These were my flashbacks.

John: Yes, searing memories, memories that are seared into our brains.

Kaila: Right, but your relationship with a man, what are their flashbacks with a woman? It is obviously the first time we kissed, the first time we had sex, the first time we went on dates, the first time our eyes locked, the first time he got me a present, the first it is always the first but I would say what happens if it was not always the first what happens if I could make every time the first time to fall in love again and again and again and that is why my slogan is with Latrodectus to fall in love again because it never ends. So basically she walks down the aisle then basically, you have the wedding night, which is unforgettable for most men. It is always going to be a flashback that will always be a flashback for every man. Oh, I remember my wedding. Oh, I remember the wedding night. You know what I mean? get married again. Right, but what happens if I was able to create this for every Valentine’s day or every anniversary, every Christmas, every special holiday, or just even every Saturday I can make those flashbacks sticking your mind with the power of my lingerie and creation.

John: I love it.

Kaila: That was my goal, was to keep the sexuality to keep beloved, to keep the romance, to keep things much keep everything the lost the passion going, and I just love the fact of people being in love together. It was for both sides. It was not just the woman. It was for the men as well, I wanted people to always be happy and then this is how I got into my LGBT side is I got started getting clients that were the same sex. So I was like, all right. Well then, all right. I was like, alright, so I started going back to LA. So after that basically there was a woman who discovered me. Her name was Tash. She works for now PR. She was my first publicist. She had no idea who I was, I never wanted to be famous. I want to make that clear. I never wanted to be a socialite. I never wanted anyone to know why was I never cared about that. I never wanted to model. I never wanted any of that. She discovered me and she started putting my clothes on celebrities, so I will just take my close to her and she would say. Hey Kaila, I need this done and that is done. I need you to head over to that studio drop off the stuff. I was like, okay sounds good. Okay, after two years. She is like by the way, they want you to model the clothes and I was 24 now. I am like I was like, I am five foot one. I do not think that is going to work out. You know, it is not really my thing. You know, I am more of the girl that sits in the back. I just sew and create and dressed the girl and the model walks. She also put on my first fashion show by the way at LA Fashion Week that was really amazing, and in Paris, it was 23 years old. It was really amazing Latrodectus came out.

John: This is all still with your first line of Latrodectus, that is this. Okay. This is it and for our listeners out there who’ve just joined this a very important episode with Kaila Methven known as Madame Methven. She is the CEO of Madame Methven and you can find her great line of clothing and I am on their site right now and it is a beautiful sight and it is easy to use for all the sinners at www.madame with an e Madame Methven M E T H V E N .com. madamemethven.com. Go ahead now you have now you with this young lady who is your publicist, and also putting your first line of clothing and lingerie on celebrities. Take it from there.

Kaila: Yes, so, you know after like two years or so, she asked me to model, I kind of opened up a little bit to her about my life, but I never told anyone who I was and then I woke up one day and then I was on the cover of Maxim, USA.

John: Wow, that is big time.

Kaila Shegerian: It is they can see Eris exist. I am like, oh God and I got a million calls. My publicist was like your the kids here as I was like, yes, my family’s to own and they sold it to Pepsi, first of all, I like to make clear here. I never chose to be called the K of Sierra’s they sold it to Pepsi. So I should be called the Pepsi here, but they wrote literally on the headlines was finger-licking good Pepsi. I mean KFC heiress of me like in my lingerie naked mom like, oh my God, the whole world is seeing me naked right now went viral and literally, after that, I think I had about I do not know like I think I had about 50 people contact my publicist demanding interviews. So I did all the interviews and then I started doing like camera interviews, which I totally needed to say that I had to get a training coach and media coach, and then I had to get another publicist that would work for red carpets because I start getting invited to events, and then they said okay. They are like, do you model them? Like, no, they are like, okay. Well now you do, you know you are in maximum now you are in and then they shot me in Playboy then they then it when it started going up higher in the magazines to Angelino to like the Latin said that it was Mary Westwood. I have just done sassy like in Australia than now I already have like nine magazines of already booked for Rave magazines like the next one, which is my EDM one, which I will talk about later.

John: Sure.

Kaila: And it is just, I think I have been on over a hundred and twenty covers worldwide and I have been in over I think 800 magazines worldwide. It was just been a lot. So that is where my life escalated and it kind of turned into. Okay, you are no longer a designer. You are all these things my Instagram blew up overnight everything kind of changed and I kind of kept it as much as I could on the down-low, but I stopped fighting it and I said I am going to use this maybe this is why it happened. I am going to use you know, I am going to use this power to get out great messages to the world and like, change it so fast-forwarding 24 to I will name some things, I have done like I invented the 1.5 million dollar bra I did that.

John: I do not know what that is. Obviously.

Kaila: That cost 1.5 million dollars made it only of diamonds.

John: Wow, and how many were there buyers of it?

Kaila: Oh, yes. Sure. Wow it on TV shows. What else did I do between 24 devices? I was a woman of the year. I want five design award-winning designer Awards. I would then I got offered I was managed by Best PR and managers in LA and town and I have been shot by the most amazing photographers worldwide my life really changed. I had to get a Glam Squad I had to like it here. Oh, I see Alex started and what like discovering the universe now, it is totally different now. It literally likes a 24/7 like people are there all the time. My team is about 50 people now.

John: Wow, that is so nice. That is great. So wait a second. So when did you go from just one line to creating the madame?

Kaila: Now we have the made-to-order, which is me which is all the jewelry line. It is custom-made for celebrities like princesses in Dubai, you get a lot of people from a lot of Arab countries that reach out to me for wedding nights. They love like all their wives in diamonds and special occasions. We have the Mademoiselle line, which is basically being called a boyfriend line, which is sexy lingerie to like wear around the house. You also have the Latrodectus line that is still happening. You have the LBKM line, which is what you would call The Calvin Klein line, which is basically everyday underwear that you would just wear just underneath your clothing, but it is still sexy and then you have the Madame Special K line that the newest one, I just launched this December that is a whole another story probably for a whole other podcast because that took two years to make and they literally it got stolen and I had to remake it again. So I lost $500,000 worth of clothes. I got broken into my store. It was busy. That is another day another Dawn. But okay the good news. I have a clot. I have a company that signed me on and it is going to be sold worldwide in 2021 to 400,000 festivals.

John: That is the festival lingerie line.

Kaila: Yes. It is called Madame special K. Like as you know as in Special K the drug, it is and they have all got like dirty names. Like they have yellow yay and its mass Market you have the Banger Banger rats. You have the Daddy’s dead Duchess, and you have like the bubble gum tit squat you have the glow-in-the-dark systematic, and it is fun.

John: Awesome.

Kaila: I get to collaborate J’s and it is a lot of fun. Sadly, I was supposed to start earlier but due to the whole COVID, it completely changed, and that is where I came up with the plur is actually it was generating for that 2 a.m. in the morning. I came up with a plur at that moment.

John: Explain to our listener’s and by the way, I am on your amazing website and like again.

Kaila: I think it is closed down due to the factories and everything right now. So but it is all reopening cheddar a second.

John: That is great. And what is plur what is the plur stands for PLUR Association stand for explain to our listeners what that is.

Kaila: Peace, love, unity, and respect.

John: Thatis awesome. That is when you started that organization.

Kaila: I did it, you know because I said, I wanted to change the lives it literally just hit me like 2 a.m. I think I was watching some crappy Netflix like a television show and I was like I need to do something great this year and this is before COVID head. I said I want to save millions of people’s lives I said, how am I going to do that? I said I am going to help in the plur organization because plur usually stands for peace, love, unity, and respect. It has to do with the LGBT, meaning respect us, even if we are transgender, pan.

John: Sure.

Kaila: It is being gay, cross-dressing, whatever you are respect me, and it also goes for being straight or if you have three wives or not.

John: Right.

Kaila: Whatever you are. It is beautiful. That is what intense.

John: I love it.

Kaila: That is why I love the EDM Community. There is just no judgment and that is why I went in went into it is because it is a completely different brand from all the other brands I ever made because there is the color it glows in the dark. It is happy its freedom its Liberty. It is allowing people to be who they want to be and I also changed as a person when I made this because I open my eyes, I guess when I started making this I was I am 28 now. So two years ago. I was 26 when I came up with the idea of Madame Special K. I just changed as a person and I think it was because I was ready to any you get a little bit older after your mid-twenties and I think start to kind of come out of that shell where you are just ready to be happy and accept who you are as a woman and I had gone through a lot of battles in my life and I was finally happy and at a point where things were doing really well for me, it is hard every day, there is always a problem, obviously running a business being a CEO you always have to put out fires. There are spots left and right. I mean, it is I wake up every day with fires and good news and bad news the changes own or but finally I found peace in my heart, I would say at 26. I think I finally, you know forgave my father, forgave my mother. I think I finally forgave a lot of people that have hurt me, I found in the power of God to just say dear God, I forgive them and for anyone I have hurt please have them forgive me and I was ready to just move on in life and create a life to make other people happy and not me, not just make it about having it be a sexual relationship but also at being a relationship with yourself as a human being and making other people happy worldwide and that is what EDM stands for me is making people happy worldwide. Not just with the music, not just with your friends partying and having a great time and drinking but it is about the community and how they are there for one another no under no matter what circumstances and that’s what I fell in love with and because we do not have that you can say in America as much as you want that, you know, we all accept each other. We all love each other. This is a great country. Etc. But we are still at today, you know, just look at it three weeks ago black lives matter. We are still facing problems, you know to add in the EDM Community. We do not face problems. We do not see color. We do not see sexuality. We do not see politics. We do not see the culture, we just see you in the eyes of who you are and that is what I love.

John: I want to go into that for our listeners are just join. We have got Kaila Methven. She is the CEO of Madame Methven. You could find her great line of clothing at www.madamemethven.com. Kaila, this is an important episode of impact because you are doing many many great things. Some people just come on to talk about one Mission there on, you have got many things going on at once. I want to sort of toggle from your great clothing line for a second and go into this. It is just this week and that is why the timeliness of this show is so important this last past Monday, as we know there was a critical Supreme Court decision landmark decision that does not let employers fire people for being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Can you share some of your thoughts on what just happened? And where you think we are going to be going and how you are going to be a leader in the direction of how we get there to post this Landmark decision.

Kaila: I had made any mixed feelings because I was like, all right, here we are you’re telling and I was on a phone call with a girlfriend of mine is transgender. She is on little woman of LA and she is just the most beautiful person ever and I personally really really really love her as a person. She is just great. She is beautiful. She does high fashion and we were talking about it and we were talking about how her name is Plastic Matera. She is a very famous transgender and we were talking and she was complaining about the fact like, she would go to the Emmys and use the restroom and Oprah was even fighting this ever Twitter and she was kicked out.

John: Oh my gosh.

Kaila: And I felt so bad. I was like, wow, this is serious. And I am happy about the law that now they are not going to discriminate in any workplace. But what about I am still not aware of does this mean the restroom does this mean the cafeteria? Does this mean restaurants? Does this mean as I am still not understanding with the Supreme Court exactly where what they are saying, I understand under work circumstances, but should it be under all circumstances? And at any place at any time.

John: Wow, I agree.

Kaila: Oh for me and I hope that plur had some, you know effect to it or somebody on the Supreme Court, read my article and was like, she is doing good. You know, we need to help out the LGBT more Community, like it is not enough that they can not go out and be lawyers and doctors and they are being judged for it. It is not enough that they are not getting accepted into universities. It is not enough that they are not able to go walk on the streets and they can’t go to a restaurant and not be stared at 4:30 20 minutes and it makes me cry and actually I am starting to cry right now because even as a straight woman, I find it completely unacceptable. You can be whoever you want to be no matter what, no one could tell you under any circumstances. Now, so for a doctor to have the right to say no to you, it is not. Okay. So let me get this straight all these rich guys in Beverly Hills can take their wives to get bigger breasts. But if there is a there is a man who wants to become a woman you are telling me he has the right the doctor has the right to say, no. This makes no sense to me.

John: I agree.

Kaila: So it brings tears to my eyes because I am like under the medical field. I understand there is estrogen. There is just testosterone, we work on different hormone balances. I understand medically, maybe they probably need different nutritions than us. If you are a man female or male, I understand that but what does that have to do with your sex change? What does this have to do with knows? What does this have to do? If you want to be a woman or a man? Whatever this is your choice, we are just people all of us are just people who word people and you know every day worth trying to figure it out. I make a thousand mistakes daily like anyone. I am still figuring it out, Jesus, I can not even date normally.

John: Kaila, though. You are a really incredible person. You are a doer you do not sit still you do not let the world get you down in everything that happens to you. You do not let it you when you are knocked on your butt you get right up and you keep pushing forward. So now you understand more about the Human Condition than most people get in a lifetime and you are still tremendously young talk a little bit. I want you to share with our listeners. I want them to be inspired by the action that you are taken given how important of a topic this is to you and what it means to you talk a little bit about the pledge to raise a million dollars to help the LGBTQ community and the impact that you want to make with unemployed and historically marginalized people of our of the LGBTQ community survivors serve the living people and others that have historically been marginalized by our society with immunity times are changing. We are living literally living it right now.

Kaila: We are living in a very shitty time right now. Let us be honest.

John: So I want you to break it down and share your thoughts on it. And what are you doing?

Kaila: [inaudible], It starts off. I think we are all excited. Right? Yes, they do everything we can to 2019 is over. I believe it was January 7th. I went to the hospital and I had a hundred and two fever and they could not figure out what was wrong with me. So let us start there and I could not even lift up my arm. I was so sick and they kept saying she must have the flu B something’s wrong with her and they were x-raying me I was not coughing I did not have anything wrong, but they could not figure it out. So they just gave me what they used in Sweden of the Z-Pak and Amoxicillin. So I went home for two weeks. Thank God Amen. God bless. I was so much better. They came out in January 2010 and 2020 on the 21st of January. They said COVID is real it is here. And I said, okay. Alright then going on. I am in the middle. I just launched plur and my and my decision was I said to myself I want to help millions of people find jobs, but how can I do that as a lingerie designer? How can I do that as someone who is selling the festival wear? how can I do that? As someone who is selling clothing? So I said what about if we make independent contractors agreements where basically they can do it on their own time anytime in the world in any language in their own space by Zoom door. The privacy of their home or if it is either by travel or in by if they know a local shop by selling Madame special care anyone of my lines they get to automatically keep the 20% of whatever they sell.

John: Wow.

Kaila: Normally stores will not allow that normally it is like 8 percent to 13 percent 20 percent upfront changes your life. You sell 10,000 you get to keep your 20% You said 20,000 get to keep 5,000 you get you to sell a hundred-thousand you get to keep thousand up to you. So right now, with plur this is where we stand we had about a couple thousand people right now that we are signed in we are going to be doing conferences around the United States and we are going to be going to LGBT centers on domestic violence centers rehabs for the facilitation because a lot of people that come out of them do not have jobs. And what we are going to be doing is we are going to be providing them with all the necessary tools lookbooks, spreadsheets everything we are going to teach them. We are literally going to get P presentation. We have people that are trained. We have training videos for it. We are going to allow them to go out there and and and a represent the brand and plur and who they are and anyone could work for plur. It is open to everyone if you want to volunteer. You can just volunteer if you just want to donate money just to help with the cause, you can just donate if you want to just call and you just need someone to talk to you can reach out to 1833 on Madame M, and please follow the plur association official, it is on Instagram. And also my Instagram is Madame Methven. So at Madame Methven, if you guys can follow us both just DM me, and then you can sign up also the website is Methven and METHVEN and plur.com and yes, you can go right in. It explains about the charities we have brand ambassadors. We have Disney on board. We have Festival attics onboard the owner of the GrooVe cruise. We have the Beverly Hills housewives on board. We have some of the top lawyers, doctors, in the world on board, and we are trying to find more people. We have American me now and we are getting a lot more people on board as we speak. It is really hard to start a charity especially in the middle of a pandemic but we are getting there were doing it. And we are doing really well and it has been hard because I have gone a lot of death threats, a lot of people that are against the LGBTQ + community have put me down. I have had people from my past come to me willingly wanting to threaten to like hurt me. Literally. I have had people DM me and say that I am disgusting for helping them. I have had people literally contact me my CEO and be like I want to work with her because she loves that she loves gay people, and it is just been really hard for me to heal all here all this hatred in this world, even though it is for everyone. I have repeated it a million times. I just feel that you know, they deserve a chance and to be seen just like everyone else does.

John: Right. That is amazing. So your goal is to raise 1 million dollars at least for people who have been impacted, correct?

Kaila: Absolutely, and we have done really well so far and you know, it is been a great journey. I have also received so many love letters and carrying Love Letters from people and support from so many of the communities and centers and so many brand ambassadors the people who I have met friends through this journey, and I have made another community and I feel like it is just going to be great. We are actually going to be having in 2021 on Groove cruise is one of my partners that I work with Jason Bucca, he is the CEO and one of my really good long-term friends. I am also going to be doing a fashion show in January with them, but he offered to throw the plur official party of 2021 with all the brand ambassadors that will be there. Everyone will be there. It is going to be like the launch so I am really excited about that.

John: That is so important and congratulations this you are really Beyond business for such a young person to be taking on the burden of this kind of controversial topic and like you just said these people writing you love letters and thank yous and these people that are doing the opposite and exhibiting hate.

Kaila: It was scary.

John: I do not blame you.

Kaila: Lawsuits, blackmail. It is been scary. I have actually had to Airbnb in Hyde left and right now.

John: Oh my gosh.

Kaila: I have actually, moving to another location as we speak now because I am just so scared. But no matter what, I feel that I will always stand for what I believe in and for women who have abused men who are abused people of drug addiction who people have been in through gone through racism through these past weeks people feel unloved people who just want to talk to somebody people who need a job. I am here. Call me DM me, text me it is on my Instagram. It is on my website. I have a team reach out. You are not 11 do not ever feel that way because I have been down that road. I felt depressed. I felt sad. I felt like a million times. I want to kill myself. It is the end of the world, right? My mom’s dead. I do not speak French, what am I doing here? You will get their life does change you can not get up.

John: I love your message before we sign off for today, and of course, you are always welcome back on the show to continue to share your journey and to also share any new initiatives that you have. Can you Kaila share it with our listeners? How do you recharge? who inspires you? I want our listeners to hear because you are giving so much. Where do you draw from now beside yourself, which we know internally? You have a resilience That’s Unique Beyond Unique who inspires you and how do you continue to draw strength every day?

Kaila: I do not really have to say it is just seeing the people happy and smile and mostly my mother the memories of my mom and the fact that I wish she could be at my wedding or see my grandchildren or for my mom everything I do is for my mom and for the people.

John: I did not ask you earlier, but I will ask you now how old was your mom when she passed tragically.

Kaila: I was 14.

John: You were 14, but how old was she?

Kaila: She was 40.

John: She was that young. Wow.

Kaila: Her name was Lisa Methven. Then I recently just fed like the guard National as well, and I was really upset like my story did not get picked up so much and I was really upset about it because I felt like no one cared about them and it just broke my heart because there is just so much protest, and looters and everything going on lately and now COVID it is coming back and it is just a very sad time now, but I just want people to remember to keep their heads up high and to smile because even when you are down below and you feel like it is the end of the world and trust me I have been there a million times and I am crying so hard right now and I know that even when you feel unemployed and your heart is broken and trust me, I have had my heart broken a million times and I have a hard time to get inspired sometimes as well. I do not want anyone to ever felt let down but most of my inspiration comes from my mother and God. God is really just the secret to everything. One prayer can really change the life of a million people.

John: For listeners out there. I did not know we were going to be speaking about some of the topics you brought up today, but I do want to offer this up the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is always available 7/24 for Anyone who is feeling desperate who is feeling suicidal you could please call 18002738255, is Kaila said there is another side you can get through it others have gone through it. Unfortunately, her mother succumbed in a tragic way, but her mission is to help other people to get through all of the burdens that are under and their Journeys. When they are marginalized or pushed aside needlessly and so today’s episode was so important Kaila and for our listeners again one more time to find you. They could go to www.madamemethven.com MADAME Methven METHVEN .com or on Instagram.

Kaila: All right, you said better right at Madame Methven.

John: At Madame Methven and also for our listeners out there. This has been an important episode and I have taped thousands.

Kaila: As well, 1833 Madame M.

John: I love it, and for and this has been an episode with Kaila Methven. She is the CEO of Madame Methven and Kaila you have not only made a huge impression on me but you are making a daily impact on the world. You are making the world a better place, and I am so grateful and thankful for the generosity of your time today to be on the Impact podcast. Thank you again, and you are always welcome back here.

Kaila: Thank you so much, sweetheart. Let us talk again when I am president in 2030.

John: Done.

Kaila: Thank you so much for today.