Reggie Watts: Is Reggie Watts the Guy Your Mother Warned You and/or Your Sister About?

0:00 This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about an unprecedented talent, a musician slash comedian who defies categorization. who has created deep affinity with comedy nerds and music fans alike. A man who signals a type of charisma that can be seen from space, but a man who has come under fire recently for using that charisma, that talent, and the power of celebrity that accompanies it to disastrous ends, and allegedly also using that power in tandem with powerful drugs like ketamine, bufo, and other psychedelics and designer drugs.

0:55 A man your mother might have warned you and or your sister about. I'm talking about Reggie Watts. A man who, despite what you think of him or what your definition of great music is, made just that. Great music. Unlike that music you heard at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called New Country Ain't That Bad MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Choose in Texas by Ella Langley. And why would I play you that specific slice of everything's bigger in Texas cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March 28th, 2026. And that was the day that Reggie Watts' ex-girlfriend, Catherine McCullough,

1:46 died by suicide. setting off an investigation into the musician-slash-comedian's treatment and alleged abuse. Abuse allegations that Reggie strongly denies. On this episode, an unprecedented talent, the power of celebrity and of ketamine, the death of Catherine McCullough, allegations of abuse, and the man your mom may or may not have warned you and your sister about, Reggie Watts. I'm Jake Brennan.

2:17 And this is Disgraceland. I've got two sisters, and I distinctly remember growing up hearing my mom warning them to stay away from certain types of dudes, the dirtbags and the druggies, as my mother so tenderly referred to them as. One of my sisters listened straight away, and the other eventually did. We grew up in the 80s and 90s.

3:06 High school was a reflection of those classic John Hughes films, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink. A blue-collar town sidewalk puddle reflection, but a reflection nonetheless. The dirtbags and the druggies, the bad guys my mom warned my sisters away from, they looked exactly like you'd expect.

3:27 Like Johnny Bender, not like Ferris Bueller or Ducky. Nowadays, we can't hold a John Hughes mirror up to the world to help us sort out the wastoids and the dickheads and the righteous dudes. Things are less simple, more nuanced. But prior to this year, if you ask someone where musician, comedian Reggie Watts stood on my newly patented John Hughes High School Judgment Scale, if you ask them this question, is Reggie Watts a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal? Reggie Watts, the ultimate Neo-Maxi-Zoom dweeby, would probably place closer to the brain side of the scale.

4:10 Maybe occasionally crossing over into basket case territory, but Far from criminal. And perhaps criminal, just as it was for Johnny Bender, is too strong of a word for Reggie Watts. Maybe Reggie Watts is just like the rest of us. As Brian the Brain said, we're all bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all. But is Reggie Watts just innocently bizarre? Or is Reggie Watts a wolf in sheep's clothing? A disgrace. The guy your mother warned you and or your sister about. We're about to find out. On March 28th, 2026, Catherine McCullough, Reggie Watts' ex-girlfriend of two years, died by suicide. Catherine's friends and family claimed that had she never dated Reggie Watts, she'd still be alive. This was originally reported by Rolling Stone

5:06 magazine on August 20th, 2026. As of this writing on September 7th, 2026, Reggie Watts has not directly responded to this accusation, but he has spoken through his lawyer, Andrew Brettler, an attorney who previously represented Danny Masterson, the That 70s Show star turned criminal, currently serving 30 years to life for two felony counts of forcible rape. Brettler also represents Prince Andrew, who is now just Andrew Windsor after losing his royal title, over sexual abuse allegations and his association with Jeffrey Epstein. Reggie Watts' attorney has stated unequivocally that these claims against his client are dangerously false. And Reggie Watts has gone silent, his skyrocketing career in entertainment as

5:59 one of the most compelling absurdists since Andy Kaufman, one of the most electric improv performers since Jonathan Winters, one of the most innovative loop artists this side of Marc Rebillet, the former house band leader for the Late Late Show with James Corden. His career, it's all come to a screeching halt. Friends and family of Catherine McCullough are no doubt unsympathetic. But what do fans of Reggie Watts think?

6:26 Is Reggie Watts who they thought he was? Or has he been something else all along? To understand, we have to look at how Reggie Watts became Reggie Watts. Reggie Watts was always a version of the oversized teddy bear his friends watched climb the ranks from Scott Aukerman's underground show Comedy Bang Bang on IFC to James Corden's mainstream Late Late Show on CBS. Reggie was born in Germany to a French mother and an American Air Force surgeon.

7:04 The family eventually settled in Great Falls, Montana, where young Reggie Watts lived out his version of a John Hughes childhood. A close examination of Reggie's autobiography, Great Falls, Montana, Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and A Tale of Coming Home Again, reveals that Reggie was, at some point, just like a lot of teenagers, trying to find his place in the world, and at different times, either a brain, an athlete, a basket case, and even infrequently, a criminal. But most of all, just like John Hughes, Reggie Watts was a romantic. In his memoir, Reggie explains his childhood with self-aware romance, verging on fantasy. Like a lot of Gen Xers, Reggie saw his life as a movie, an adventure with him cast

7:56 as the leading man, and with plenty of leading women cast opposite him. But as Reggie saw it, his goal was to subvert the toxic archetype of the chauvinistic leading man and to instead be the quote-unquote sensitive James Bond. The James Bond who respected women. The James Bond with the heart of gold. Reggie goes on to describe his fantasies about how chivalrous he'd be to women once he finally grew up and got the chance. Okay, this is all very Ferris Bueller, but there's definitely a Johnny Bender side of Reggie Watts depicted in his memoir as well.

8:38 There's the time he and his friends stole a brick of weed from someone's pickup truck, and the tales of boosted cars and joyrides, of passing stolen checks off to unsuspecting record store clerks, of shoplifting, and even of breaking and entering and stealing a large cache of guns from a neighbor's home. Real dirtbag behavior, as my mom would call it. And then there's the teenage wasteoid drug use, Robitussin, LSD, and colossal amounts of grass soundtracked by the bands whose logos Ally Sheedy's Breakfast Club characters scribbled on her book cover, The Cure, Bauhaus, and Ministry. These experiences and influences would help inform what would become one of the most unusual careers in show business. Reggie Watts broke through the underground

9:31 comedy scene in the mid-aughts with a style that was entirely his own. He brought a hybrid musical comedy approach to the stage that teamed synthesizer loops and beatboxing with madcap improv. He was a punk rock Michael Winslow, a grungy Ornette Coleman, a bebop Robin Williams. all competing on stage for the same slice of spotlight. Gen X and millennial comedy nerds were evangelized by the second coming of their very own Andy Kaufman. Reggie Watts steadily rose through the ranks, from Eugene Merman's East Village Comedy Night to the festival circuit opening for Conan O'Brien to voicing multiple characters for Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker to flying private to Richard Branson's own island to perform at a

10:22 climate change event to taking edibles with James Corden. By the time 51-year-old Reggie Watts met 36-year-old Catherine McCullough, he was a full-blown star, larger than life, a six-foot teddy bear who seemed to stand even taller with his epic shock of frizzy hair, a man whose warmth belied his celebrity status. Reggie Watts, at the time Catherine McCullough met him, was a renowned Hollywood night owl, a man of the people, at least a man of a certain type of people, the types who stayed out well past last call and fueled their stumble to sunrise with staggering amounts of drugs.

11:03 Because by 2023, Reggie Watts was a full-blown ketamine addict, an outspoken psychedelic evangelist, and a self-described psychonaut. Okay, this is the point where proponents of psychedelics and drugs in general and Reggie Watts apologists get frustrated with me and scream into their screens, Reggie Watts isn't addicted to ketamine, you dumbass. Okay, maybe you're right, but Reggie Watts hasn't shut the fuck up about ketamine for the past few years.

11:38 And Catherine McCullough's family and friends... claimed that when she met Reggie, she was her normal, healthy self. An ex-Cornell Law student who scored near perfect on her LSAT. A buoyant personality whose eyes sparkled and windowed the mind of an independent young woman whose bright future was still very much in front of her. They say all that began to decay when Catherine developed a previously inconceivable ketamine addiction during her relationship with Reggie Watts. Reggie Watts' attorney claims that by the time Catherine met Reggie, she was already experienced with drugs and that Ms. McCullough did not need any quote-unquote encouragement from Reggie Watts. But Catherine's friends and

12:24 family believe the opposite. They claim that Watts pressured Catherine and promoted drug use as a tool for intimacy. One of Catherine's friends who spoke to Rolling Stone anonymously stated that Catherine wouldn't have fried her brain without the encouragement of her boyfriend, who regularly promoted psychedelics and other designer drugs, again in an effort to achieve intimacy in their relationship.

12:50 Catherine's sister, Colleen McCullough, put it simply, I feel very strongly that the sister that I knew before this relationship would still be here if she had never met him. Reggie Watts' attorney, Andrew Brettler, said in a statement that to suggest that his client was responsible for the suicide of Catherine McCullough is again dangerously false and a preconceived narrative.

13:17 But it's a narrative that's easy to understand when you consider everything Reggie Watts said about psychedelics and ketamine over the past few years. It's a microphone like any other. Just like the thousands you've seen before. Except this one isn't set up on stage. It's on your desk in your office. However, this doesn't make the mic any less of an instrument or any less of a tool or a weapon. Because you're Reggie Watts and if there's one thing you know, it's how to work a mic. It's the early 2020s, post-COVID. All the world is an improv stage and Now you don't even have to leave your house to climb up onto it and entertain millions. You can do so in your crusty jammies on Zoom in conversation with B-list celebrities over the internet and wax poetic

14:15 on any subject under the sun. And no surprise, you're Reggie Watts, so you're really, really good at this. Soon, the podcasters themselves will become celebrities and COVID will end and you'll bring your charisma and all the smart things you have to say about all the smart things your smart podcast listening fans want to listen to you talk about into new podcast studios and lay your rap down in front of real cameras for fans of Joe Rogan, Mark Maron, Rainn Wilson, Conan O'Brien, and others. And in these interviews, just like you do with print journalists, sooner or later, you'll turn the conversation toward your favorite subject, drugs.

14:56 Not in a juvenile Cheech and Chong kind of way, but in a more Vox-approved, I'm-here-to-explain-this-to-all-you-kiddos kind of way. It's psychedelic pseudo-intellectualism, the type of rap that says, I grew up reading Hunter S. Thompson. But it's also the type of rap Hunter S. Thompson would have hated, because you're clearly in love with the sound of your own voice when you hear it extolling your love of narcotics, and it's just a touch too Johnny Harris drugstore guinea pig than it is Matt Dillon, drugstore cowboy. About ketamine, you say, I love it. I think it's one of my favorite drugs ever. On falling into a K-hole, ketamine's version of a bad trip, you say, I like going into a K-hole because that's an incredible experience. You tell GQ that

15:43 ketamine is one of your top five things of 2023. You tell Joe Rogan that Ketamine just puts you immediately in a spot where you're no longer emotionally connected to your observational self, and that the drug helps you move closer to your goal of full ego death. Shit like this makes you sound, to the right people anyway, really smart.

16:07 Until you go on Rainn Wilson's podcast and you spread disinformation, which is ironic because you once had a comedy special entitled Disinformation. When Rain pushes back on your positive claims about ketamine by referencing actor Matthew Perry's addiction to the drug, you're quick to say, whatever he died of, it wasn't ketamine.

16:26 It was like it was a drug addiction, and he also had heart problems. There was a confluence. But that's just an addict's rationalization. In this case, your own addict rationalization. Matthew Perry quite literally died of the quote, acute effects of ketamine with drowning as a contributing factor. But none of that matters, because you're Reggie Watts, and shit, man, if half of us were as evolved as you are, if we were all just as curious and smart and open to drugs and the deaths of our egos and new James Bond leading man archetypes that put women first, well, damn, wouldn't life just be a little more special? Wouldn't we all just be a little better off? All of us, perhaps.

17:13 Except for Catherine McCullough. Catherine McCullough fell hard for Reggie Watts. Or maybe fell is the wrong verb. Catherine sank. Sank down into a relationship that existed on a lower plane than the frequency her life normally vibrated on. Catherine was one of those women who walked into a room and sucked away all the attention. She was tall, beautiful, buzzing with wit. She was serious about her future career in law, passionate about art, film, comedy, and music, and outspoken about her passions with the kind of confidence afforded to someone who knows exactly what they like. For Catherine, drugs were merely a passing social interest, sneaking away from the party for a bump in the bathroom with friends. smoking grass,

18:31 experimenting with ecstasy at a rave or whatever, and yes, even trying ketamine. But compared to her new boyfriend's drug experience and daily drug use, Catherine was putting up rookie numbers. This, according to friends of Catherine's, was a constant area of tension between the two. Reggie Watts treated ketamine as medicine for the couple. The key to unlocking whatever psychosolution was necessary to move him and Catherine beyond their mental blocks, to detach from the weight of their egos, to help evolve into the people that the universe intended them to be.

19:13 Evolution was the goal, and so drugs, ketamine mainly, and at times other designer drugs and psychedelics, were rungs on the ladder to transcend into higher consciousness. If this all sounds woo-woo, it's because it is. Reggie Watts believed this, and Catherine McCullough, who prior to meeting Reggie Watts was, as her friends described, the least woo-woo, fully bought into this rap because she viewed Reggie Watts as someone who was special. His career, his success, his personality, the way he spoke, the way people listened to him, the light that he brought into every room, all that charisma. Why wouldn't Reggie Watts have special knowledge? Catherine was hooked. She invested everything she had into their relationship. She sidelined her career.

20:06 She devoted her time and energy into Reggie's when The Late Late Show was canceled. The pair made plans to produce a new comedy special. Catherine self-funded one of Reggie's web series and helped Reggie on the road, accompanying him to shows and to festival dates. Catherine also accompanied Reggie on his spiritual quest, which meant Catherine McCullough did a lot of drugs alongside Reggie Watts. A Cornell friend of Catherine said that with Reggie, Catherine used LSD, MDMA, DMT, MMCs, cocaine, Ritalin, Adderall, ketamine, Xanax, Valium, and Modifinil. And that Reggie, quote, really took her to the edge. But unlike Reggie Watts, Catherine McCullough was no psychonaut.

20:55 When it came to drugs, her constitution was not as solid as her more experienced boyfriend's. Still, Catherine's friends say Reggie continuously pushed her to keep up with him in an effort to achieve greater connection in their relationship and that Catherine came to believe that she could only fully access the intimate side of her partner through their shared drug experience. Catherine's Cornell friend also said that Reggie was constantly pushing her boundaries and trying to convince her that she should be taking the same dose as him or at least a heavier dose than what she thought she wanted.

21:36 So that's what she did. And that's when the K-holes started to swallow her up. What's a K-hole, you ask? Well, according to the research I've done in the Arrowhead Archive, according to the many first-hand depictions I've read detailing subjective psychoactive experiences, a K-hole is something like this. The K-hole stretches out before you. An endless geometric tunnel. This is what you bargained for. A new experience. But you want detachment.

22:16 Right now, you're fully in your head. A different room, but nonetheless still contained by the familiar. Then, the blackness of the tunnel engulfs you. You're anchored by the weight of it all. Infinity. And then, that feeling you get. when the roller coaster lurches to life for the first time. You feel yourself skip ahead and stop, but you feel yourself differently than ever before. You're now experiencing yourself from beyond yourself and that feeling you just had of something about to happen. It was like the excitement you get when something good is about to happen for someone else, but that feeling is now accompanied, not overcome, not replaced, accompanied by by intense isolation, loneliness. When was the last

23:07 time you felt two competing feelings at the exact same time? Never. It's clear to you now. You are somewhere else, and the ride is about to start, and then you're off. The blackness that surrounds you is now paced with parallel white lines. They race alongside you and you're speeding away from something faster than you've ever felt or seen anything move before. And all you can think is you're racing away from yourself. That's when the terror hits. What have you done? Death. This is it. You're gone. You're no more.

23:44 The fear you feel isn't in your stomach. It's in the stomach that used to be yours. And it's not that familiar feeling of fear. The one you had back when you were alive. The kind of fear that sank like a pin. This fear is buoyant, unsettled, alive. It's its own monster. It scratches at the inside of what was you. You experience the pain as a phantom sensation, like a lost limb. You see the emptiness expanding as you race toward nothing grows faster. Still, the white lines hurtling by you are multiplying, stacking onto one another. You wonder if what you're witnessing is the scaffolding of the universe.

24:24 If that's true, then does this answer the question? Is this death? Is death, just like life, all movement? But instead of moving closer to yourself, toward a better understanding of yourself, toward the best version of yourself, you know, you know you're moving in the opposite direction, away from yourself.

24:50 Are you now just a soul? Is your body no more? Is your life lost? What have you done? What will happen to the people you left behind, the people you love, the people who love you? Suddenly, you're lucid. You understand exactly who you are and what you did to get here. What you did. The voices appear in legions. They whisper and then they scream. This is your fault. Just like everything else, you'll never love the way God intended. Because you are no more. If detachment was the goal, then mission fucking accomplished. Goodbye, cruel world. Hello, self-obliteration. Outside of yourself, you watch what was you tangle through time. It's an endless loop. Time is measured in proportion to the weight

25:45 you no longer distribute, which is metric tons, not mere seconds. You're watching a movie that never ends, and the main character, you, is no longer what you once were. How did this happen? You were so beautiful, so full of life, and now here in this place, you're transposed into a knotted ball of interconnected nerves. There are no endings, just more endless loops.

26:11 Gone are your curves and imperfections. What made you you? You've been replaced by an amorphous ball of rubber-banded anxiety hurtling through time and space. The only benefit now is that in this place, here, outside of yourself, you can see yourself plainly for what you are. And that's got to count for something, right? That's what he would think.

26:35 Knowing yourself, that knowledge. Well, you wonder what happened to you. And the regret hits you like an amyl nitrate shock to the heart. You feel the world in your throat, which is a good thing because now you can feel your throat. And then you heave, and the roller coaster you started this trip on wrenches up from your stomach, through your esophagus, and out of your mouth and into the toilet as you pass out on the cold bathroom floor.

27:03 When you wake up, back in your body, you're alive, but you'll never be the same. Catherine McCullough, by her own account, as recalled in writings from the Recovered Notes app on her iPhone, Cahold extremely hard many times during her relationship with Reggie Watts. When her father died in 2025, a life event that her life partner, Reggie Watts, mostly left her alone to contend with, reportedly telling her, I don't do grief anymore. This event sent Catherine and Reggie searching for something else to help with the grief. The couple decided to take Bufo, an extremely intense psychedelic. Reggie Watts' attorney claims Catherine initiated and organized the Bufo trip. Through his attorney, Reggie Watts claims he did not witness any

28:04 of what is alleged by Catherine McCullough's loved ones to have happened next. After taking Bufo, they claim that Catherine experienced unshakable side effects, weeks of nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety, and intense depression. Post-Bufo, Catherine McCullough entered a state of near constant mania, crafting bizarre social media posts, firing off odd texts to friends, and beginning work on what she was calling a working, complete, unified theory of infinite, eternal love.

28:42 It was around this time of grief and mania that the object of Catherine's apparently infinite love, Reggie Watts, decided to break up with her. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. As a fan of music, of comedy, as someone who follows the world of entertainment, as someone conscious of culture and the people who shape it, as someone hyper aware of the moment we're living in right now.

29:20 When I think about Reggie Watts, it's difficult to understand just who this guy is and what he's really like. I don't know him. I've never met him. I have a vague recollection of being at a party or an event once and knowing that he was there. But beyond that, I've had no interaction with him. But I do know people.

29:40 who have. People who have worked with him. People who have socialized with him. People who are close with people who are close with him. Not surprisingly, they paint a different picture of Reggie Watts than the one Reggie Watts paints of himself. Now, I say this is not surprising because almost every celebrity on the planet does this. What they reveal to the public is often an exaggerated and sanitized version of who they really are. And this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. It's human nature to want the public to only see the good side of you.

30:15 We all do it to some degree, but most of us aren't famous. Reggie Watts is, and he's an entertainer. Even in his autobiography, he's entertaining us. Sure, he's vulnerable at times, and yeah, he's revealing, but every word of it is written with the primary intent of getting us to turn the page, to keep reading, to stay interested in Reggie Watts. So when he paints this fantasy version of himself, when he says things like he wanted to be a kind of James Bond who respected women, or that At an early age, he had fallen in love with the idea of being the perfect boyfriend, of being trapped by his fantasies, and that he had this idea of himself giving presents and how he loved being romantic, constantly coming up with new ways to prove his devotion.

31:08 And then, in the next breath, explaining his promiscuity about meeting new fascinating women each night, well, you can't help but feel the ick because his entire spiel is couched in the subtext of i love women and i'll never settle on just one because i'm just too damn special but hey man it's cool because i'm reggie watts and i respect women i've read bust and ms magazine articles or i've at least glanced at the headlines on instagram my take on reggie watts is this If the series Portlandia was going to create a character who was your dream of the 90s is alive neighborhood Lothario, someone comfortable in conversation with Candace and Tony at Women and Women First, someone who instinctively understood when to perfectly time Nina's safe word,

32:01 someone who Portlanders knew was a major stick man around town, yet accepted his behavior because of his thoroughly modern views on monogamy, polygamy, and feminism, views he expertly articulated within the lexicon of bullshitty voxism, someone whose charm was abundant, whose look was not only unique, but the opposite of what you'd expect from your local player, well, if I was writing this character for Portlandia, Reggie Watts would be the perfect inspiration to base him on. But the question remains, is Reggie Watts the dude your mother warned you and or your sister about? In the spring of 2025, after being involved with Reggie Watts romantically for over a year, Catherine McCullough was well aware of her addiction to drugs.

32:56 She reportedly told her sister, Colleen McCullough, I think I have an addiction problem. Colleen claims Catherine was reluctant to tell Reggie Watts about her problem, confiding in her sister that, I've got to prepare for it because he's not going to like it. During the same period, a friend of Catherine's, Brylin May, told Rolling Stone that he noticed an extreme personality change and the chiseling away and erosion of her independence.

33:28 Brylin says that with Catherine, he tried the tough love approach, but that he could not break the spell he, Reggie, had over her. And other friends and family members had started at this point to believe that when it came to Catherine McCullough and Reggie Watts' relationship, there were aspects that were abusive. Recovered writing from Catherine's Notes app from this time says the following. My partner is not totally supportive of me resting or abstaining from drugs. I feel his judgment slash resistance when I abstain or barely partake or want to do more research before partaking because it confronts him with a message about his own drug use that he is not ready to receive yet. She notes, there are absolutely things I could do to improve this

34:21 by asserting stronger boundaries and but I also need his support and understanding. And on a 2025 trip to Berlin, Catherine McCullough would most definitely need Reggie Watts' support and understanding. During the summer of 2025, while Catherine McCullough was dealing with the negative effects of her Bufo trip, extreme anxiety, depression, and being in an on-again, off-again panic state, she accompanied Reggie Watts on a trip to Europe. While in Berlin, Catherine's mania took hold of her. According to a visiting friend who spoke anonymously to Rolling Stone under the name Dakota, Catherine was acting erratic, manic, and appeared to be in need of medical help. Throughout it all, Catherine continued partying

35:15 alongside Reggie and their friends. Reggie Watts claims he took Catherine to a doctor. Rolling Stone reported that three people claimed Reggie seemed desperate to rid himself of McCullough amid this incident. What is beyond dispute is what happened next. Reggie Watts and Catherine McCullough, because of the episode she was having, departed Europe for Los Angeles. When they landed at LAX, Catherine was hardly able to walk. She was in a bad way. She soiled herself. and her friends took her immediately to the hospital. Reggie Watts did not accompany his struggling girlfriend. Instead, he went home to catch up on some sleep. This does not sound like the perfect boyfriend. Not by a long shot. Nor does it

36:08 sound like Reggie's fantasy of himself, of proving his devotion. It sounds like a nightmare narcissist boyfriend whose chief concern was himself. After the incident at LAX and the manic state she'd endured in Berlin and on the plane, Catherine was treated at the hospital overnight and sent home. That's when the nightmare began for real. Catherine, according to friends, felt like Reggie couldn't get rid of her fast enough.

36:39 And while she dealt with her anxiety and the lingering effects from her bufo trip, Reggie continued to party. It was while Catherine McCullough was in this fragile mental state that Reggie Watts ended their relationship. The fantasy of the perfect boyfriend was now officially dead. Without Reggie, Catherine felt she had nothing. She'd invested her whole life into him.

37:05 She worked for him, lived with him, adored him, accompanied him on his drug-fueled explorations. accepted his philosophy on life, on death, on just about everything, and now all of it had been ripped away from her. The loss was beyond anything Catherine had felt before. It was like a part of her foundational self had been removed, like some sort of ego appendectomy. Not only was Catherine contending with the loss of who she thought was the love of her life, she was also fighting the dread and regret that she felt over her cavalier drug use. explaining to a friend that she was afraid she'd altered her brain in an irreparable way. She rationalized her decisions by telling friends that she, quote, really trusted the people she was around.

37:55 Catherine's writing from this period reveals exactly how Catherine felt. I was in a relationship with a brilliant, handsome, sensitive, romantic, hilarious, insanely talented and fun partner that ended, because I had a drug-induced manic episode. It made him lose his romantic and sexual attraction to me to see me in that state.

38:20 Our relationship was dream-level romantic, and we loved being together all the time. Catherine McCullough wrote that post on an online suicide forum. The dimming love light in Catherine's life was blackened by the darkness masquerading as support on the suicide forum. So-called goodbye threads on this website where vulnerable people like Catherine narrated their last days, where community members assisted others with step-by-step instructions on how to kill oneself.

39:01 All of it beamed off of Catherine's screen. There were spirited conversations on methods, guns, gas, offers for meetups, guides who would fly away with you IRL and help you catch the bus with a partner. There were heart and thumbs up emojis posted in support of forum members' final decisions. One word exclamations of praise for those who followed through, legend, hero, brave, and the constant discussion around the sodium nitrate method and the pain-free exit it provided if done just right. The conversation about the failure of therapy, the drugs that didn't work, the drugs that worked too well, loved ones lost and lost love, and how life without them couldn't compete. Catherine took it all in. And she posted on the forum,

39:52 doing really fun and stimulating things literally every day with other incredible artists, sleeping in as late as I wanted, sharing a beautiful home, not worrying about money for the first time in my life, being spoiled with whatever I wanted. His life is absolutely incredible and sharing it with him was bliss, magic, unbelievable, beyond my wildest dreams. I can't get over the stupid way I lost him and I can't stand my life now compared to what it was with him. I also can't stand knowing I will never be remotely close to that happy again and knowing I will never love someone nearly as much as him because he is so the total package and singular. I think about him and memories of our life together literally every

40:36 waking moment and sometimes in my dreams too. Catherine McCullough then connected with a German man on the forums. and they made plans to meet in real life. She got on a plane, met the German man in Lima, and then sent a text to Reggie Watts about the afterlife and was gone. Catherine McCullough's body was discovered by Peruvian authorities on March 28, 2026. She died by suicide. The note she left said the following, To everyone, this hurts.

41:42 I'm sorry that my peace came at your expense. I hope you can forgive me. I hope it helps you to know that the way I went was as peaceful as possible. I know it's so selfish and losery to quit because drugs gave me a mental illness that took away the people in the life I loved. But I'm tired and it hurts, and I can't trust that things get better. I believe that consciousness is an ocean containing everything and that the individual corporeal self is only a wave temporarily rising from it. I've returned to the ocean, but I believe we bring our memories back with us.

42:24 Because of this, I will never forget or stop loving you. Understandably, Catherine's family and friends were devastated by this news. Whatever Reggie Watts' reaction was, Devastated is not the word anyone would use to describe how he presented himself in the aftermath of his recent ex-girlfriend's death. Spring, 2026. News of Catherine McCullough Reggie Watts' ex-girlfriend's death has broken out. In this aftermath, Reggie lies in his bed, staring up at his phone and talking to his nearly half a million followers on Instagram. He wants them to know that he's okay, and Reggie is grateful for the support he's felt from friends, and he's letting everyone know that he's okay and that there's so much love pouring in from everybody and that

43:25 it's incredible to feel that love. Reggie preempts his critics. He tells them, He's playing gigs because it feels good and he's carrying Catherine's energy. It's good to know that she's with him, he says. Reggie points to the drop earring dangling from his right ear. He's proud to point out that the earring is a gift from Catherine. He casually mentions with a mischievous grin that the jewelry is based on mycelium spores, the reproductive cells that produce psychedelic mushrooms.

44:01 And Reggie has heard from people who have heard from other people, people on the other side. From psychics, he explains, who have heard from Catherine since she caught the bus. And don't worry, Reg, she's all right. So Reggie wants everyone watching not to worry about him again because he's okay. He loves himself, he says. Actually, what he literally says is that he really loves himself and that he has a really great relationship with himself and that this is what's getting him through the death of his ex-girlfriend. He describes Catherine's death with words like elegant and intentional and beautiful.

44:44 He provides details about Catherine's death to his followers, details that Catherine's family were not aware of. Details Reggie culled from Catherine's devices. Details her grieving family would have appreciated knowing before the public heard about them. But that didn't occur to Reggie Watts. Neither did the tone deafness on display in this post at the time it was shared, which is likely why the post has since been deleted.

45:12 But there's another post that remains, and it's equally tone-deaf, though it presents a different side of Reggie Watts. Less grieving woo-woo teddy bear, and more of the drugged-out creative Nighthawk lurking under the sympathetic surface. A different stage in the seven ketamine stages of grief. You know, denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and k-holing on an Instagram Live. The post is titled, Catherine vibes and features the appropriate heart emoji to really reinforce the love Reggie feels. He begins the live with an off-the-cuff version of Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill, you know, where he found his thrills, low-key stick man that he is, and then he slides off screen and this is when

46:01 two distinct snorts can be heard. God, what could he be doing, we're left to ask. He's so edgy. Back on screen, The teddy bear eyes sag with the weight of a neglected pharmaceutical recycling bin. He's lit only by the glow of his laptop. The song he performs is Jagged, an electronic vamp for Catherine. Catherine vibes. Before Reggie signs off, he asks his followers to send all their love to Catherine.

46:31 And he reminds them that we're all here to entertain one another and not to fall for what he calls the hard traps. That they're not there, man. They're just hard. I don't know what Reggie Watts means when he uses the phrase hard traps, but I can only imagine that it's post-Freudian psychonaut Cahill speak for the things in life that are difficult. Like sacrifice. For the ones you love.

47:04 For the ones who are going through it. putting others first, not being entirely centered on one's self. By the way, we're not here primarily to entertain one another. We're here to love one another. This is an important distinction for a narcissist. The type of person who believes everything, even the death of a loved one, is about them. When there is nothing in the world that can be more personal than the choice someone else makes to end their own life. it is most certainly not about anybody other than the person committing the final act. Since the story about Reggie Watts and Catherine McCullough broke, the word abuse has been thrown around quite a bit as a result of the allegations from Catherine's family. They stated that had

47:55 Catherine never met Reggie, that had Reggie not pushed his views on psychedelics and designer drugs onto Catherine, as they allege, that Catherine would still be alive. Again, an allegation that Reggie Watts' attorney, Andrew Brettler, calls dangerously false and a preconceived narrative. Going on to say that by the time Catherine McCullough met Reggie Watts, she was an experienced drug user who did not need any encouragement from Reggie Watts.

48:27 Reggie Watts' attorney has stated that Reggie was never aware of Catherine being suicidal and that not once during that period did Catherine or any of her family members or friends ever suggest to Reggie that she was suicidal. Narcissistic behavior manifests in different ways. Five women, all exes of Reggie Watts, detailed to Rolling Stone behavior that fell far short of Reggie Watts' fantasy of being suicidal. the perfect boyfriend.

48:59 One of the exes claimed that Reggie surreptitiously filmed a video of them having sex without her consent, that he made her feel small, love-bombed her, iced her out, and repeatedly tore down her self-esteem until she finally broke up with him. Another ex claimed that Reggie had sex with her without a condom while knowing he had an STD.

49:23 Reggie's lawyer says that this claim about the reckless transmission of an STD by his client is false. Other exes of Reggie Watts claimed that he prompted them to indulge in substances and ultimately prioritized his needs over theirs in a way that chipped away at their self-confidence. One ex-girlfriend calling herself Anna, who dated Reggie back in 2018, said that he's not who he projects himself to be publicly and that, I've seen many people hurt or mishandled in their relationship with him. Because of this alleged abuse, Reggie Watts has lost festival gigs, he's had club gigs canceled, and his theme song for the beloved Comedy Bang Bang podcast has been replaced. But the word abuse is tricky.

50:15 Is Reggie Watts in any legal trouble for allegedly abusing his ex-girlfriend for his alleged treatment of Catherine McCullough? It doesn't appear so, and I doubt very much that either he or his lawyer believe that they are in any legal peril. With his cancelled gigs over alleged abuse, Reggie Watts is now facing a less direct form of justice, which is is ironic considering that narcissists often have an indirect way in which they abuse their victims. Narcissists are often funny, charming, magnetic. When they shine their light onto you, it can feel like the power of a thousand suns or at least the power of a beloved B-list celebrity.

50:57 But when the narcissist takes that shine away, when they ice you out, you're left freezing on what feels like the dark side of the moon. Earlier in this episode, I tried looking at Reggie Watts through the lens of John Hughes characters to better understand him. Is Reggie Watts the archetypical Johnny Bender bad guy or a Ferris Bueller good guy? I'm not sure he's either. Maybe we shouldn't look to John Hughes for this answer, but to another iconic 80s storyteller, Brett Easton Ellis and his less than zero character, Julian, played by Robert Downey Jr. Julian isn't entirely a bad guy or a good guy. He's funny, he's charming, he's magnetic. But ultimately, he's narcissistic and destructive.

51:53 Reggie Watts feels more like a Julian than a Johnny or a Ferris. And sure, my mom's old school, so she'd probably call Julian a druggie, maybe even a dirtbag. Definitely someone she'd tell my sisters to steer clear of. But what do you think? After what you've heard in this episode is Reggie Watts like Julian, the guy your mother warned you and or your sister about. I leave you with this. On top of everything Reggie Watts is accused of by Catherine McCullough's family and friends and all that he has denied, one thing he hasn't disputed is that after Catherine died in Peru... Her loved ones started a GoFundMe to raise the $ 20, 000 they needed to cover the cost of bringing her body back to America. Reggie

52:43 Watts did not donate to the fund. He never even shared the link with his followers. No matter what Reggie Watts is or isn't, that, without a doubt, is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for checking out this episode on Reggie Watts. What do you think of Reggie Watts? Do you blame him for the death of Catherine McCullough, as has been alleged by his family and friends? That's a heavy allegation. What do you think? I want to know. Is Reggie Watts, in your eyes, the dude that your mom would have warned you and or your sister about? Let me know. 617-906-6638.

53:31 Voicemail and text 617. Want to hear what you think of this episode at DisgracelandPod on the socials, DisgracelandPod at gmail.com. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts. credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com if you're listening as a disgraceland all access member thank you for supporting the show we really appreciate it and if not you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com membership Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod and on YouTube at youtube.com slash at DisgracelandPod. Rock-a-rola.

54:27 He's a bad, bad man.