“We’re going to try to make it as natural as possible for him. He’s going to live his life out here."
Forget the polished studio interview. Benny Blanco and Lil Dicky’s new podcast “Friends Keep Secrets” films inside Lil Dicky (David Burd) and his wife Kristin Batalucco’s actual house, with 18 cameras rolling and zero scripted questions.
The result? The kind of unguarded celebrity moments that almost never make it past a publicist’s filter. And the first full episode, featuring Blanco’s wife Selena Gomez, delivered one reveal after another.
The pilot episode dropped Feb. 24 and pulled in more than 224,000 views as of March 5.
The first full episode arrived March 3 with Gomez as the guest, and it ran 50 minutes of raw, unscripted conversation between four people who genuinely know each other.
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Here’s everything that came out of it.
Gomez Opened Up About her Bipolar Disorder
One of the episode’s most striking segments had Gomez talking about living with bipolar disorder. She called her diagnosis “complicated” and said it took multiple therapists and four rehabs to reach.
What separated this from a standard press tour disclosure was Blanco filling in his own perspective in real time. He said he noticed early in their relationship that Gomez would have moments of “mania,” though he didn’t know what they were at first.
“She’ll start to realize she’s having it after, and sometimes she doesn’t even remember when it’s happening,” Blanco said. “It’s such a delicate thing ‘cause you’re not supposed to technically talk to the person, really, about it while they’re deep in it, and even dating her, she’s, like, so hyper-aware.”
Gomez said she wasn’t ashamed of the episodes and praised Blanco for being understanding. She framed the conversation around what a supportive partnership actually looks like when mental health challenges are part of daily life.
“But it is helpful to have a partner that will understand where maybe the temperature is at, and meet you where you are, and then you kind of gradually understand what’s happening,” she said.
The Famous Taylor Swift Birthday Gift
Blanco told a story about Gomez bringing things over to the house from storage. Among the items was a piece of artwork that Blanco said he was “blown away” by. He asked who made it, expecting her to name a famous painter.
The artist was Taylor Swift. The painting was a 30th birthday gift to Gomez.
Gomez described it in detail: “She did it on an actual cloth, and she painted a beautiful lake. It was at night, and the moon was there and in the stars…she painted our exact star signs. So for hers [Sagittarius] and mine [Cancer], and she said, ‘Here’s to the next 30 years,’ handsewn, ‘From Taylor to Selena,’ and it was all sewn by hand, so she had it painted or she painted it.”
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The hand-sewn lettering was what struck Gomez most. “It’s just, instead of writing, ‘Here’s to the next 30 years,’ or printing it, she sewed every letter,” she said. “It was the sweetest gift.”
The story came up organically, during what looked like an actual conversation about moving belongings into a shared space. That level of personal detail almost never surfaces during a standard press cycle.
Gomez Confirms ‘Dorothea’ Is About Her
The Swift conversation kept going. Gomez confirmed that Swift’s song “Dorothea” is about her.
“From relationships to family to love to hate, all of it in between — we were figuring it out [together],” Gomez said. “We didn’t really know what was going on. We’ve never seen each other any differently. So when I listen to it, I’m so impressed by how it’s eloquently put.”
She also discussed an unreleased vault track titled “Family” that Swift wrote about her. Gomez recalled what the song conveys: “It was over, easily, a decade ago, insinuating in the lyrics, without quoting, it is basically saying you have these amazing dreams.”
“You want to be in a movie, in every crowd I see you,” she explained. “Then her part was, you believe in my stupid dreams, like playing stadiums.”
Time has given those lyrics new weight, Gomez said. “Now, when I listen to those songs, both of those things have happened for us. And that’s really sweet because back then, she was just like, ‘I wrote this song about us and it was just our story,’ and it was the sweetest thing.”
The Viral Toe Kiss and Pickle Scene
The Gomez episode produced moments that traditional podcast setups don’t. Mid-conversation, Gomez leaned over and kissed Blanco’s bare foot while he had it perched on a coffee table.
The moment had backstory: in the pilot episode, Blanco went viral for being barefoot, and fans called him out for how dirty the bottom of his feet were.
After the kiss, Blanco turned to Burd and Batalucco and asked, “You like that?”
Gomez slapped Blanco’s knee and told him, “Don’t make it a moment.”
“No, I wasn’t. I liked it. It made me feel good. I love you so much,” Blanco responded.
He went on to explain that he tries not to engage in PDA when with Gomez because she likes to keep it professional during interviews and in public.
“She’s such her own entity,” Blanco said. “I want her to shine and be her own independent woman so I try so hard — I use every bone in my body not to be googly-eyed over her and not kiss her and jump her bones all the time.”
“So to watch her just kiss my toe really made my day,” he added.
There was also a pickle-tasting segment. Gomez revealed that bread and butter pickles are her favorite snack — she eats them almost every night. Burd, who hates pickles, put one in his mouth but couldn’t chew it and spit it out.
The Mystery DM, Divorce Joke and Family Dream
A celebrity slid into Gomez’s DMs in 2022 with a heart eyes emoji and a fingers crossed emoji. The name was bleeped out. Gomez confirmed it was a random message, not a response to her Instagram Story.
“He took his shot… It was a good shot,” Blanco joked.
“I think it’s very kind. If anything, that was very nice,” Gomez said. “It did not feel inappropriate. By the way, that was the first time I’ve ever seen it!”
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When the group talked about jealousy and significant others filming intimate scenes, Gomez said she would divorce Blanco if he took on an acting role with a sex scene.
She quickly said she was joking and that she would let him take the role if it was something he believed in.
The conversation turned to family size. Blanco asked Burd, 37, and Batalucco how many children they hope to have. Burd said no more than two kids; his wife said “like three.”
Gomez said she wants four and traced the desire back to a specific scene from the movie The Family Stone.
“My dream for sure was that scene where they’re all at the dinner table and they’re just with their partners or their significant others or kids or single and it’s just this beautiful cast of characters,” Gomez said. She added that she would be happy with any number.
And one more small detail: Gomez changed her iPhone’s AirDrop name to “Shine Bright” after receiving random photos via AirDrop on airplanes. The name comes from the Rihanna song “Diamonds,” where the lyric is “shine bright like a diamond.”
Blanco co-wrote and produced “Diamonds,” and Gomez chose the AirDrop name before she knew Blanco was the love of her life.
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The full first episode is available to watch here.
