Brooke Baldwin

I'll never forget her sitting with me by the pool.

And I was curled up and feeling gross and dirty and what had happened.

And I didn't know.

And she was like, Oh my God, Brooke, like you could have AIDS.

I was like, I could

i didn't even think like how gross and cringeworthy and shamey that was and then i started shaming myself and then i started lashing myself and jen like ask any man i've dated like i'm a strong woman i know how to not know as a full sentence and also i lashed the out of myself

and i as i was writing my sub stack realized oh my god did that start because of that day because of what was done to me and i think a lot of women we're so tough on ourselves and even when it comes to like sexual violence being done to our body we're like we excuse it away or we gaslight it away or we're just to ourselves and we have to stop that

Yeah, I think, you know, it's I came back to New York because I'm ready to lean back into journalism.

I think I needed a minute after CNN.

I needed to, like, go live by the ocean and heal and surf.

Yeah.

And I feel called to this work.

I think I have always like the biggest compliment anyone can give me is that I'm a woman's woman.

I wrote a book all about the collective power of women in the throes of the first Trump White House.

I needed to, like, feel my soul on the weekends.

Yeah, these women.

and i don't know i don't think it'll necessarily be solely focused on women and sexual assault but i think a lot of my audience will be women and i hope also men but i do plan to build a platform i mean look at you look at dawn look at like all these ways we are trusted yep um how we can break the rules my whole like what i say is i want to do journalism but on my own terms

you know, every day I would wake up and God bless, like, thank you CNN for hiring me.

Thank you for, you know, employing me all those years and what a blessing.

And I learned so much and I wouldn't be sitting here had I not done that.