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Barely Famous

From Foster Care To Founder: Bobby Jones' Second Chance Story

30 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 31.624 Kail Lowry

Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird. It's your fave villain, Kale Lowry. And you're listening to Barely Famous. All right, y'all, welcome back to Barely Famous. I'm sitting with a local entrepreneur, Bobby Jones. So you're the owner of Brightside in Dover, Delaware? Yes, ma'am. Okay.

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31.644 - 38.38 Kail Lowry

And you reached out to me and told me about your story a little bit, and I didn't go too in-depth online about it because I wanted to talk to you about it.

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38.42 - 38.661 Bobby Jones

Cool.

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38.911 - 56.653 Kail Lowry

So I kind of want to just start from the beginning. You have a story about foster care and kind of struggling during your childhood, but then you became an entrepreneur. And I think this is a story that a lot of people can relate to. So at first you talk about growing up in poverty. What was that like? Where did you grow up?

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56.713 - 67.146 Bobby Jones

Right in Magnolia, Delaware. We had a little single wide trailer. There were five of us in that house. And the main reason that I ended up in foster care was because my parents were

67.598 - 90.655 Bobby Jones

um addicts they had struggles with addiction both of them yeah um and it's it's kind of interesting because they had separate drugs of choice which is kind of unique i think but um my mom um she actually spiraled because she ended up getting diagnosed with um cervical and ovarian cancer. And she had like 11 surgeries in a 12 month time span.

90.915 - 91.276 Kail Lowry

Oh, wow.

91.536 - 113.518 Bobby Jones

And the results of that was a lot of pain. So they just started throwing pain meds at her. And at that time, Oxycontin was this big new thing that was supposed to save everyone and, you know, live life without pain. And, um, so they prescribed her 160 milligram Oxycontin and that was only around for a couple of years before they literally outlawed that and discontinued it. Okay. Um,

113.583 - 115.866 Kail Lowry

But by then, I would imagine it was probably too late for her.

Chapter 2: What challenges did Bobby Jones face growing up in foster care?

147.441 - 152.226 Bobby Jones

No, I think, and I want to be very clear. I have a great relationship with both of my parents today.

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152.246 - 152.947 Kail Lowry

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

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152.967 - 172.651 Bobby Jones

Because I really, you know, I want to emphasize that because the relationship with my mom is relatively new. We've rebuilt and my relationship with my dad has been pretty good for a while now. But once they separated, my dad was able to clean up pretty quickly. And I don't mean to blame my mom, but when you have just a toxic environment and And you have that drug use.

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172.992 - 177.46 Bobby Jones

I think he just got into it as a result of it being so close to him.

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177.721 - 179.204 Kail Lowry

Did you have siblings growing up?

179.224 - 205.998 Bobby Jones

Yeah. I have an Irish twin. My younger sister is 10 months younger than me. My mom went in for her six-week checkup to find out she was pregnant. Been there. Yeah. I blame my dad on that one. And then I have a half-brother, Jason, who actually works with us at Brightside. And he's from your mom's side or your dad's side? Mom's side. And as he would say it, same hole, different pole. I'm dead.

206.018 - 210.246 Kail Lowry

How old were you when you sort of recognized that your parents were struggling?

210.631 - 213.076 Bobby Jones

Yeah, it's interesting. As a kid, you don't know what you don't know, right?

Chapter 3: How did addiction impact Bobby's family dynamics?

213.116 - 230.752 Bobby Jones

So it's like you're growing up and you're just like rolling with the punches. You don't know that everybody's not experiencing the same thing. So, you know, I didn't even realize I was broke until like I got to school and they were like talking about like trailer park trash and stuff like this. And I didn't understand what that was until they were like, well, that's what you are.

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230.772 - 250.08 Bobby Jones

I was like, shit, all right. Um, and then, you know, like the, the stuff with the addiction again, like it really was kept from us enough that we weren't seeing what was causing, like, you know, like the things that would eventually be the red flags for the schools and the people to step in and start an investigation.

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250.12 - 266.193 Bobby Jones

And, and those things were really just like, you know, I, you know, when I would get up in the mornings, I would kind of like, you know, look through a pile of clothes that was like kind of on my floor for what was the cleanest to wear to school. Okay. Um, and sometimes I'd be coming to school in the same outfit day after day.

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266.774 - 274.506 Bobby Jones

And so, you know, this was starting to raise flags for the guidance counselors and the counselors at the school systems. And they started to look into things.

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274.667 - 275.909 Kail Lowry

So they picked up on it. Yeah.

275.929 - 294.954 Bobby Jones

And I think that's when you're like, oh, wait, what the heck? You know, like you don't really know until somebody is like, and there's like this intervention or intervening, but even. Our lives were very – looking back, it was a lot of like just roll with the punches stuff. So when things would happen, we were just like, all right, we'll just keep pushing through and keep rolling with it.

295.435 - 303.751 Kail Lowry

Did you ever have conversations with your parents – Or your siblings even about like if someone asks you this, this is what we'll say. Like did you already have – Yeah.

304.011 - 315.004 Bobby Jones

I mean but my parents did that to each other too. So again, it was very normal. It was like don't tell your dad this. Don't tell your mom that. Right. So like outside of the home, like you don't – definitely don't tell people out there this or that.

315.104 - 323.114 Kail Lowry

Right. I have very similar memories as a kid. My mom struggled with addiction and so I also picked up clothes off the floor and sometimes didn't shower.

Chapter 4: What mindset shifts helped Bobby break free from his past?

742.946 - 760.833 Kail Lowry

Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. It's hard because I think so many people fall back on religion because they're like, I don't know where to go from here. But to your point, like that can apply to even if you don't believe in God, you can still apply it to your life. Yeah.

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760.913 - 771.051 Kail Lowry

And I think what you said about the relatability today is like you went through all of that and so many people can relate to your story now. So it sort of makes it all worth it. But sometimes it's hard forgiving the people along the way.

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771.291 - 771.712 Bobby Jones

Yes.

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772.353 - 782.204 Kail Lowry

Yeah. So your sister and your brother, you're with your sister for a little while. Your brother goes with your grandparents. At what point do you separate from your sister and for how long?

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782.525 - 795.69 Bobby Jones

Yeah. So they kept moving us in different homes because I guess if your parents find out where you are when you're at a foster home, they have to relocate you. I didn't know that, but that's what they were telling us. And I don't know if that's true, but that's what we were being fed. Okay. Okay.

796.042 - 796.723 Kail Lowry

I didn't know that.

796.943 - 812.202 Bobby Jones

Yeah. I don't know that it's true. And maybe only if they're like posing a threat, like saying we're going to come get our kids or whatever, you know, will that be true? But that's what we were being told. So we kept moving from home to home. And I mean, it was tough because, you know, you're going to different schools.

812.242 - 818.449 Bobby Jones

Like I remember my sixth grade school year, Kel, like I was in like six different school districts that year, school districts.

818.71 - 819.19 Kail Lowry

In one year.

Chapter 5: How did Bobby navigate his early experiences with crime?

2897.46 - 2913.242 Bobby Jones

Cooking what? Oh, buna. It's like we get together and we make meals out of like... Whatever you have. Okay, okay. Yeah, it's called buna. But anyway... And so so like three, you know, two nights ago, I'm cooking and eating meals with these people. And two nights later, I'm fighting them.

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2913.342 - 2916.228 Kail Lowry

It was because that's your cousin and you wanted to help him or.

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2916.589 - 2926.108 Bobby Jones

Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's like it's almost like a moral obligation, even if he wasn't. I mean, it was because he was my cousin. But yeah, I mean, I like they were going to kill him.

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2927.692 - 2947.604 Kail Lowry

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2986.448 - 3001.321 Kail Lowry

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3001.842 - 3018.822 Kail Lowry

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3020.125 - 3043.625 Bobby Jones

He would have had to bring it to the attention of the guards and stuff like that and basically sign himself up for protective custody, which is a total bitch move in the prisons. Should he have done that? Probably. Probably. Because it put you in a bad spot. Yeah, but... I don't know. I, you know, to me it's like at the time, you know, what we did was more normal than having done that. Okay.

Chapter 6: What was Bobby's turning point during his time in prison?

3615.179 - 3637.052 Bobby Jones

It was made up of every limiting belief, every set of victim mentality that I had in my mind. Like everything was freaking gone. I was like, you know what? Like there's no way that this isn't something that was – You know, whatever your belief is, like it was just divine intervention to me. That's the way I was interpreting it, whether it was or not, that's up for anybody to debate. Right.

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3637.513 - 3639.095 Bobby Jones

But to me, that's how I was going to perceive it.

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3639.376 - 3641.439 Kail Lowry

And at this point was, how old were you?

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3641.459 - 3642 Bobby Jones

21.

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3642.32 - 3644.363 Kail Lowry

So you left there and you changed your life.

3644.744 - 3644.904 Bobby Jones

Yeah.

3645.265 - 3648.699 Kail Lowry

Like 1000% changed it. Or was it sort of like a bumpy road?

3648.739 - 3658.985 Bobby Jones

I mean, did I ever speed again or did I, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I definitely moved way different. Like, I mean, I would say it was a 90% transformation in that moment alone.

3659.446 - 3662.213 Kail Lowry

Did your wife notice the change in you as soon as you got out?

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