RT Player has today released two new episodes in its series The Talk, looking at the very topical subjects of body image, IVF and surrogacy. The series, an RT Player Original, which debuted last year with an insightful look at experiences of racism, discusses real life issues from a personal perspective. Two people have the talk' - an open and honest conversation about an issue that's close to their hearts.
In the body image episode, four young women discuss how they feel about their bodies. From childhood diets to dating and bullying, this is an honest and emotional insight into the impact of body image on our lives today. First on the agenda is the topic of growing up. Curvy model Jessica Cinelli recalls a desire to diet at the age of eight, while comedian and content creator Justine Stafford details the school bullying that spurred her to lose more than half her body weight in three months.
Beauty content creator Jen Morris also describes her wish to lose weight as a child. I vividly remember when I was young, thinking, like, if I could just get a little bit sick. Like, if I could get some kind of disease, that I would be sick enough that I wouldn't die, but that I would be skinny. Because that's all I cared about - trying to be small and be like all the girls and everyone I was seeing. And like, I'm not going to say it's something I thought about once, I thought about it often.
Plus size model and blogger Brenda Mangwandi discusses the worst things that have been said to her, describing an ex-boyfriend who constantly compared her to a slimmer friend. She goes on to say: The peak of it was when he said, I am tired of defending dating you to my friends because they are saying, why am I with this fat person'.
Jen mentions the embarrassment of being cornered on a train by an elderly woman who recommended a diet to her, saying When you're bigger, people just feel like they can tell you anything. Because they feel like they are helping you. She goes on to advise I just feel like you should never comment on someone's body Just don't say it. It's none of your business, you know, it's not your body. Just back off.
Social Media is the next topic on the table. Jen talks about her work as a beauty content creator and explains that no matter how hard she works in her industry, she feels she will never reach the success of her slimmer colleagues. Brenda describes being accused of promoting obesity after winning a beauty pageant. But rather than letting this discourage her, she decided to use her platform to promote a positive body image and to inspire others. Justine also used her platform to shine a light on her experiences. After writing an article for World Mental Health Day, she was inundated with messages from readers and acquaintances who had gone through similar experiences. She never regretted her decision to open up, saying If I'd have known that so many people at that time, unfortunately, were going through so many similar things, the difference it would have made to me. We are far more open about talking about these things that you can feel not so alone going through it.
Also on the agenda is the word fat'. Jessica talks about the power that this word held over her for so many years. She has since taken the power out of the word, saying: I call myself fat all the time now. I'm like - I'm fat - and what?! Jessica goes on to describe how her struggles with weight curbed her enjoyment of life for many years. But after having her son, she gained a new-found gratitude for her body and the realisation that life is for living.
The second new episode of The Talk looks at the highs and lows and the costs and legal issues around IVF and surrogacy, giving first-hand accounts and an honest and enlightening insight into the realities.
We meet Lucy Fallon, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 29. Lucy and her husband Cormac had always wanted a family and surrogacy made their dream a reality. Lucy explains When you're in a position where you've dreamt about it for so long, you've watched all your friends and family, you've gone to every christening you can possibly go to and you're at the stage where - look - it's your last option. Lucy and Cormac went on to have twins Luchia and Lauren through surrogacy.
Sara Byrne has cystic fibrosis and underwent a lung transplant. Before getting engaged to husband Padraig, she was advised against carrying a child herself. We made the decision that we had to go down the surrogacy road because I just couldn't do that to my child that maybe to put myself at risk - that if I was going to be a Mammy, I wanted to be around for a long time. She details the ups and downs of their journey to pursue surrogacy in the Ukraine, saying: The minute that Alice was born, all of the years of turmoil and grief and pain - I would do it again in the morning.'
Ranae von Meding and her wife Audrey decided to grow their family in 2015. They used Reciprocal IVF so that they could use Audrey's eggs and Ranae could carry their babies. But they had no idea of the legal battles that they would face after their babies were born.
Gear id Kenny Moore and his husband Seamus always knew they wanted to be parents. The road to having a family was not without its bumps but they went on to have twins Sean and Mary and youngest daughter Anne through surrogacy. Gear id recounts his delight at the reaction to his twins when he introduced them to the rural community where he grew up.
Everybody just wanted to meet these babies. And you could tell there was like a - just a feeling amongst people that like, this is special. And our country has jumped forward thirty years in like a five-year period. And like again, nobody cared about the IVF or the surrogacy All t
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
RT Player has today released two new episodes in its series The Talk, looking at the very topical subjects of body image, IVF and surrogacy. The series, an RT Player Original, which debuted last year with an insightful look at experiences of racism, discusses real life issues from a personal perspective. Two people have the talk' - an open and honest conversation about an issue that's close to their hearts.
