Breaking Chains: Fmr Navy SEAL Remi Adeleke's Fight for Freedom Episode 16

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This episode promises a riveting conversation with our respected guest, Remi Adeleke, a former Navy SEAL turned writer, actor, and author. We journey with Remi, starting from his birthplace in Nigeria, through his tough adolescence in the Bronx, and his relentless pursuit of becoming a Navy SEAL. He candidly shares his unique perspective on success, the essential role of fatherhood, and the influence his father's legacy and commitment to Nigeria has had on his life.

We then shift the focus to the pressing issue of human trafficking. Remi recounts his poignant experience of visiting a slum in India and the desperate conditions he witnessed. The encounter with a mother driven to unthinkable decisions to secure her children's survival emphasizes the urgency for global awareness and action against human trafficking. Hear how this experience inspired Remi's dedication to raising awareness about human trafficking in the medium of film and television.

Lastly, we shed light on the grim reality of organ harvesting, a lesser-known aspect of human trafficking. Remi narrates a chilling story of a man's perilous journey from Venezuela to the US, lured by false promises, and ultimately becoming a victim of organ trafficking. Remi also discusses his transition from a Navy SEAL to a storyteller in Hollywood, the challenges he surmounted in his quest to amplify the issues close to his heart. Get ready for a powerful exploration of Remi's transformative journey from a troubled past to a purpose-driven present.

@remiadeleke

Remi's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Chameleon-Black-Thriller-Remi-Adeleke/dp/0063238837

Unexpected Movie written by Remi on YouTube: CLICK HERE  TO WATCH

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To See The Full Video go to "Journey To Win" on Youtube

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

What's up everybody, welcome to the Journey to Win. I'm your host, brandon Thornhill, super excited to bring you guys a former Navy SEAL. Now he is literally performing at the top of his game. You guys are going to be blown away at his story, because I've been blown away at a story of where he's been and where he's at today. Remy Adelechi, is that how you say your name?

Speaker 2: 0:22

Yes, sir, that's good, that's good enough, brother.

Speaker 1: 0:24

That's a tough last game, bro. That's a tough last game.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Yeah, it's a tough one, it's a tough one, but it's all good. That's why everybody just has to say hey, Remy, that's good, that's easy.

Speaker 1: 0:32

One of the boys just called you Remy and I said hey it's.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Adelechi. Right, you're like no. He's the author of the acclaimed memoir Transformed. He's born in Western Africa. Following his father's death, his mother brother and he relocated permanently to the Bronx in New York City. I'm sure I'll talk about that, guys. After years of making regrettable decisions, remy joined the Navy in 2002 and later became a Navy SEAL, and, after a successful career in 2016, he was led to pursue business consulting and filmmaking, which I'm excited to talk about Now. He's a writer, he's an actor. He's known for the movie Ambulance, he was in Special Forces, world's Toughest Test and the movie Plane, and also he just wrote recently the movie the Unexpected, which we're going to dive into here in a second. Now he resides in Southern California with his wife, jessica, and their three sons and daughter, remy. What's up, man? Welcome to the podcast, my friends.

Speaker 2: 1:33

What's up, brother? Thanks for having me. Yo, my man.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Dude, nice to have you. I know I've been following you on social media for quite some time. I was telling you earlier I've never actually officially met you, but the SEAL team's very small, so we always hear each other, of course. So I always start off with one question, Remy, and that's what is winning to Remy, what does that mean to you? Because this is the journey to win.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Yeah, what does winning to me mean? Well, I would say, coming from a fatherless home and because of the absence of my dad, going down a dark path and making a lot of bad decisions before joining the Navy. Now, as a father myself, winning is being able to provide a good life for my kids, being present in my kids' lives, teaching them my boys how to be men, teaching my daughter how to be loved by a man, and the ultimate win is when they grow into adulthood and their assets to society. So that to me is winning being a father and raising up my legacy to do great things.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Now, what a great response. I love that especially. I have two girls now, so I can relate.

Speaker 2: 2:47

I'm sure anybody who asks can relate that so tell me, those girls got you wrapped around their finger. Huh.

Speaker 1: 2:54

There's no doubt, man, there's no doubt.

Speaker 2: 2:56

You know, I thought I knew what true love was.

Speaker 1: 2:57

That's harder than my daughter yeah, I thought I knew what true love was, until you have girls. Yeah, absolutely, it changed everything, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Everything.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So tell me, you know, I know you, so you're born in Nigeria, right? Yep?

Speaker 2: 3:13

Yeah, I was born in, born into Riches and Wealth. My dad was a very successful entrepreneur, businessman, you name it. He did it. He owned an engineering firm that didn't just operate in Nigeria but actually started in the West and the UK and the US. He was on the border to a World Trade Center in New York City, on the border to British Financial Planning Council in Great Britain, and after he amassed as well, he came back to Nigeria because he wanted to create an African World Trade Center in Lagos and somewhat of like a Wall Street in Lagos, because Africa is very rich in resources, from oil to gold, to cocoa, to natural gas, even to minerals.

Speaker 2: 4:00

You know, there's a lot of stories coming out of Africa now where China is going in and they're buying up land and buying and cutting these deals to be able to go in and mine these, these mines essentially, and take these resources. And so, because of how rich Nigeria is and resources, my dad wanted to create some form of organization via one of the first manmade islands in the world of Goon City. So after he created that, I was born around that time in 82. And so we had absolutely everything. We had cars, nannies, drivers, traveled the world, ate the finest food, my mom and dad will host lavish parties. I remember years after my dad died being in our apartment in the Bronx and finding a letter from Ronald Reagan and the White House that was written to my dad.

Speaker 2: 4:51

So he was well ahead of his time. And but unfortunately, nigeria historically has been a very corrupt nation and every almost almost every country has corruption in them, but theirs is very systemic, systemic and very overt. And so, long story short, after my dad formed this island, which is now known as Banana Island, it was one. It was originally known as Lagoon City. The Lego State government came in and said that the federal government was never supposed to sell my dad the swamp, that essentially he turned into an island and all of my dad's assets and finances were wrapped up in this island. So much so that my mom would tell my dad all the time hey, bio, we need to put some money in the US because I don't trust the system. My mom was American.

Speaker 2: 5:39

My mom and dad met in New York City and after they got married she moved to Nigeria. So she didn't trust the system and she said to him if the Nigerian government does what we know they can do, we'll lose absolutely everything. But my dad was so loyal to his country and to his people that he would, you know, tell her hey, let me get this island fully set. The you know the buildings, build the Twin Towers which he had. The same architect of the world trade center Twin Towers in New York City was the same architect of the Twin Towers that was supposed to be on Lagoon City. He said let me get all of that established and then I'll start putting money in the US.

Speaker 2: 6:15

And that was essentially his downfall because, as I mentioned, the Lego State government came in and they conveniently waited until the island had been formed and buildings were starting to be built upon it to say, oh, the federal government was never supposed to sell you this. And you know they could have said that to him in months, years earlier, before you know, before you started dread. They saw all equipment coming in, they saw the Engineers from the Netherlands coming in, but again corruption, and my dad went to court and started fighting the government and died three weeks later very mysteriously and and so that's kind of how it all came about. And we went from rich to poor and my mom being an American, you know she wasn't gonna raise us in Nigeria, so she brought us to the States and I grew up in the Bronx.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Wow, man, that's. That's a crazy powerful story at the same time. And so so, after you know doing what you did and we'll get to that here in a second in the SEAL teams, do you feel like there was any American corruption in all of that as well? I'm just curious.

Speaker 2: 7:18

American corruption and what happened to my dad.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Yeah, it was not all.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Nigerian corruption. No, I mean, this was all this. I mean, to this day, our person, our family security guard, is the manager of the island that my dad, you know, built. So it was. It was Not just people that were outside of my dad's circle, but people within his circle that played a role in his demise.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So yeah, as far as.

Speaker 2: 7:45

America. Not Possible for me to see America, you know, coming in doing something shady but for short a time, cheering government.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Yeah, that's, that's wild. So even even some of his friends turned on him. Jeez, oh, 100%, yep 100%.

Speaker 2: 8:01

You know, his bodyguard is now the manager of the island. They're generals and politicians that were my dad's friend. They have compounds on this island and they're getting cuts from it. There's a matter of fact I had a Nigerian tell me a couple weeks ago that the guy who was the governor of Legos when that happened is now the President of Nigeria, and during his campaigning he said that he was the one that found it Banana Island.

Speaker 2: 8:27

So, and he was one of my dad's friends as well, so so, being a movie writer, yeah, movie coming out eventually oh yeah, the movie's done, wrote the screenplay is already in the can, even did a rewrite on it to cut down the page count. And yeah, it's gonna be epic man, it's gonna be. It's gonna be epic, it's gonna be eye-opening, it's gonna be a Educational, it's gonna be really inspiring. That was, you know. I wanted a big message. As I got From people who read to transform the memoir was just how inspiring it was and how it made them look at their own lives and question Decisions they made and decisions they're making so that they could be better people, and so I really wanted to be able to Capture that same level of inspiration that's in the book and in the film, and I truly believe that it's probably gonna be even more inspirational than the book when can people expect that?

Speaker 2: 9:21

It's a fantastic question, man. The script's done, but you know there's a writer strike happening right now and there's a there's an actor strike and you know. So it's throwing absolutely everything in a disarray. You know I have another project, oregon harvesting feature film that's supposed to go into. It was supposed to go into production mid-July. We're supposed to be in Dominican Republic filming right now, but you know the strikes shut everything down. So now I'm in a position where, you know, I gotta wait and see what happens. Hopefully we can get some waivers to get that film in the production, because I can't work on transformed until after, after on ex, the unexpected redemption is done.

Speaker 1: 10:01

Okay, so since you just brought it up, let's go, let's transition into that. So obviously We'll tell it. We'll talk about the Navy SEAL story here in a second. But you were a Navy SEAL and you know, operating at the highest level. And then you went over and went into the Movie realm, an actor realm. But how did you and why did you want to get into the I guess, political, unexpected movie realm of talking about child and sex trafficking? I mean, I love it, I think it's amazing, but but you know it's, they just did the movie sound of freedom and yeah, I went and watched that movie, I loved it, man. So so yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Yeah. So, um, you know, after I got out of the teams in 2016, I still felt that pull to serve. I think all of us do, every person, as, regardless of what branch or what level of In the military they serve in, they still feel that pull to serve after they get out. And so I was. I was feeling the same way, and so I would Volunteer with a bunch of different nonprofits, most of them inner city nonprofits, as I came from the inner city and the type of nonprofit that kept on reaching out to me Was human trafficking nonprofits. You know, I would have.

Speaker 2: 11:18

You know, one year I had this one Non-profit from Sacramento reach out to me and say, hey, we have a huge human trafficking issue up here in In Sacramento. Can you come out and help out and volunteer? I don't even know what human trafficking meant, but I went up and learn a lot. It was really eye-opening, especially, you know, finding out that this is what happens on our own soil. You know, I mean. And then another nonprofit reached out to me, another and another and an interesting oh, you are actually reached out to me at some point and and I did a trip with them down to a DR and Haiti, and that was even more eye-opening. You know, just being down there and and and, and we were in this particular slum where the parents would sell their daughters to traffickers and the traffickers would bring their daughters to the northern part of DR where Americans and other Westerners would come have pay for sex with these Girls 11, 12, 13 years old. And so we were in this slum to educate the parents and essentially, you know they already, they kind of knew what was happening but to just really go a little bit farther and and then also, you know, try and provide some resources for them to keep them from selling their daughters.

Speaker 2: 12:35

And I just remember being completely dejected. It was hard for me as a father to wrap my mind around somebody selling their own kids, and our guide noticed how perturbed I was and he recognized that I want to be able to do my job properly if I was not in a proper mental state. So he pulled me into this chapel in this slum that was no bigger than the size of two toilet stalls. At the end of the chapel was a dead six-month-old baby in a casket. There was a funeral service that was going on and the the the guide explained to me that the reason why the baby died was because the mother's breast milk ran out, because she wasn't getting enough food, and so she mixed the formula with the local slum water, and that's what ultimately killed the baby. So what he was trying to explain to me was, remi, like. I know that this is a tough pill to swallow, but you need to. You need to get some understanding. And Essentially what he was saying was this is their plight. They're desperate. Either they sell one of their daughters and the rest of their kids and have food and water, or they don't, and all their kids die. And it still doesn't justify the action. But it did help give me that level of understanding so I could be more effective on what I was there to do, and and so that was it was that trip is what really moved me. It was other stuff that I did prior to that, but that that was the one trip that really moved me.

Speaker 2: 13:57

And when I got back, when I landed in Miami, I had a bunch of missed phone calls and voicemails from Michael Bay's producing partner, my case, and he said hey, remi, you know Michael Bay starting his new film six underground, would you be open to work on it? You know it's gonna be with Netflix. You know, would you be open to being a lead consultant on the film? And I said sure. And after I hung up the phone, it was like these two worlds collided right this world of being in the film and TV industry and telling stories, but then also this world of human trafficking, and it was just like if I could merge those two worlds I think I could have a bigger impact, because, you know, human trafficking is a very Global issue and it requires a global response, which is gonna require a lot of people getting involved, and the best way to get people involved is, in my opinion, it's through media. It's kind of like what we would do overseas when we were in the Middle East or, you know, wasn't just about going out and doing. Da's part of it was, you know, civil affairs, winning hearts and minds right. And also, you know, doing the humid stuff that I did and I'm sure you know other guys you know did in order to be able to get in the head of people that we're trying to partner with so that we can Get the job done, you know, from a more of a psychological standpoint. And so that's when I was like, all right, I need to use film and TV because, just like I didn't know anything about human trafficking before I was introduced to it in Sacramento in 2016, how many other people don't know about it? And, in fact, when most people hear the term human trafficking, they only think of sex trafficking. But that's just one piece to it.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Organs harvesting is another subset of human trafficking labor, forced marriage. I interviewed a guy who was trafficked from Venezuela to Colombia and Colombia to Mexico with the promise of being smuggled into the US. So what the cartel and other nefarious groups are doing? They're recognizing how weak our American border is and they're essentially sending out these messages to people in South America and even other parts of the world that say, hey, come here to this part of Mexico and we can pay us this amount of money and we'll be able to get you in. And when the people are coming, they're essentially being abducted and forced into trafficking. And this particular guy was. He was put in a house and the women were used for sex trafficking. The kids were used as mules to move drugs through the border because they're able to those small tunnels that go from Mexico into the US. They can fit through those tunnels and get into the US and then move the drugs in and the men were used for other means of human trafficking and so that drug that's another form of trafficking is drug trafficking. And so there's all these different facets of human trafficking.

Speaker 2: 16:58

And again, the reason why I wanted to create the film was because I wanted to make people aware specifically of the organ harvesting side of it, because I think sex trafficking is something that everybody's talking about. Most people know about it because they think that human trafficking is sex trafficking and it's not. It's just a subset of it. And so I wanted to make people more aware of the topic but get more specific on the organ harvesting side, because you don't see a lot of films or stories about it. Now there's a lot of stories coming out in media, tons of stories. There's a story a few months ago this woman here in the US who fell in love with some guy in Columbia and she went down to Columbia and he chopped her up, took her organ, sold her organs on the black market that's how he got caught and her body parts washed up on the beach. Real story, I mean it was all over the news a few months ago.

Speaker 2: 17:54

There's a recent story of a girl who went down to DR to go get a. What did she go get? She went to go get a tummy tuck. Came back from that trip in the DR was it feeling well, doctor went to go see the doctor and doctor kind of figured it out, took a MRI X-ray and said you know, you only got one kidney. She was like what are you talking about? I should have two. So essentially, when she went down there to go get the plastic surgery, the plastic surgeon pulled out one of the kidneys sold on the black market. So it's a very, very wild, intricate, real business.

Speaker 2: 18:26

As a matter of fact, we know that a human heart and lungs started $130,000, just start negotiations started $130,000 on the black market. Kidneys and livers start around 50 to 60,000 on the black market. Cornea of the eye start around 30,000 on the black market. And there's Westerners that are taking advantage of and I won't even say taking advantage, but they find themselves in very desperate situations and they don't want to ask questions because they're in desperate need. You know, we know that every year about 4,000 to 5,000 people die every year on a kidney transplant list right. And so when you get people who are facing death who are desperate.

Speaker 2: 19:12

And then social media. We know that social media I mean that was a whole report that came out, I want to say, last month where Instagram and Facebook. It's not intentional, but it was discovered that a lot of these human trafficking rings are operating via social media. Instagram and Facebook fault fake accounts, dm you know they're in the DM section of Instagram. You get people who create these accounts and they search hashtags. That's why we have to be careful what we hashtag and put on social media, because you'll get somebody and this is an example you'll get somebody that'll have a kid that's sick, it has to go to dialysis, and they'll take a picture of their kid or themselves on dialysis saying, hey, today wasn't a good day or today was the best day. I had a dialysis hashtag, dialysis hashtag, sick child hashtag, xyz. And traffickers are on the social media. You know tracking that stuff.

Speaker 2: 20:08

And then here you go. You get this person that gets a message hey, I think you could. There's this company that's selling that you can get pumped up on the list to get a new organ and they say, oh yeah, I'm desperate, I'll get on that list. How much does it cost? It costs this amount of money. They have back end websites. It was a story out of India. This Nigerian engineer was in India selling organs on this very intricate back end website that he created. So again, I know I'm saying a lot of it went on the tangent, but in short, it's very real and that was how my transition happened. I began to get exposed to it and then, as I began to learn about it, that's when I was like I think I can have a bigger impact via film and TV versus just going down and doing this stuff as a frog man.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Well, that was great. I have a question on that, that before I move on. So if they're buying the organs like I, have an issue. I go and I buy the organs, are they just not really buying the organs and just taking the money on the back end, or like what's the process from there?

Speaker 2: 21:16

What happens? Oh no, no, there are deals that are being broker. They're buying the organ. It's a lot of manipulation that's taking place. So, for example, there was a big ring that was busted in Costa Rica, I wanna say two years ago, and it was this Israeli doctor that was living in Costa Rica. He had Israeli citizenship, but he was living in Costa Rica and, essentially, when people in Israel, when Israelis or other Westerners needed a kidney, he would essentially find or manipulate a poor Costa Rican and to giving them the kidney. Obviously they would give up a cut and then he would then, in return, sell it for way more money, right?

Speaker 2: 22:03

So the people who are buying the organs are getting the organs I mean, it's a whole very intricate black market enterprise and then the doctor would also perform the surgery. In fact, cairo, egypt, is considered to be the organ harvesting capital of the world, and it was a organ harvesting ring that was busted in 2017 or 2016, and of the 60 people that were arrested, 45 of them were doctors or nurses. So you know, the doctors are performing the surgeries. They're not just taking the organ out and tricking people. They're performing the surgery, they're finding matches, they're going through the process and they're making things happen. That's crazy man.

Speaker 1: 22:44

So so they can go watch the movie Unexpected, where can they watch it?

Speaker 2: 22:48

at. Yeah, they can watch the Unexpected on YouTube. It's free. I put on YouTube, I invested 150,000 in my own money into that film and I don't get paid for streams.

Speaker 2: 22:59

If you use anything, I didn't make it to make money, but it's all up there and it's based on true events. I really, you know, did the research and did everything that I needed to do to make sure that the story is as was as authentic as possible and it follows a. The victims in it, without giving away too much, is they're? They are part of a group you know this is going to force people to go watch the film but they're part of a group that was part of a genocide that the UN recently and I say recently, in the last 10 years finally recognized as a genocide, and the people within that group the men were slaughtered for the most part, and the women and kids were trafficked, whether it was for organs, sex, and it's all well known. So it's all out there, but I don't want to give away who that group is. When they watch the film they'll know what I'm talking about. Then they could just type in a name, google it and see.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Well, guys, I'll put the link in the bio to the YouTube video so you guys can just click on it, and I'll make it easy for you, cause I know you know you guys are going to want to watch it. I'm going to want to watch it now that I've heard this. Hey, since you're in Hollywood, let's, let's and we're all in sex trafficking, human trafficking. You know, sound of freedom just came out and they got all these idiots. How can? How in the world can people politicize kids getting sold off for sex and saying that it's a Trump movement, qanon, all this crazy stuff, I mean I know that Hollywood is left, we all know that.

Speaker 1: 24:41

But I mean, are they, are they legitimate pedophiles in Hollywood? I mean, I know you got to be careful what you say, but is that a real thing?

Speaker 2: 24:49

Yeah, I mean. I mean, as far as my experiences, I haven't experienced pedophilia. I haven't experienced being at a party and or being somewhere on a movie set and seeing little kids being brought in, sexualized or raped or in any way. So I haven't experienced it, I haven't seen it. I haven't heard stories of while working on set you know, we all talk I haven't heard stories of people in the business who do do those type of things. There are the Harvey Weinstein's of the world. We know that, you know. That's not I don't know if I want to, that's definitely not child trafficking, at least from what I can recall.

Speaker 2: 25:25

But he was, you know, taking advantage of people, utilizing his power, you know, and he did a lot of evil things. So you do, I would say you do have those people here and there that do take advantage of their power and find, you know, kids, find people, adults in general, who they can make do what they want to do in order to and promise a dream or promise a wish. So you know, does that happen? Has that happened? Has it been reported? Yes, but as far as me, seeing this widespread, you know, edificial ring in Hollywood, I haven't seen it, I haven't heard it. You know and trust me when I do or if I do, everybody's gonna know about it because I'm gonna talk about it. But yeah, that's my two cents on it. You know, as far as what sound of freedom and how it's being, I don't agree with how it's being blasted right, because, like you said, it's a very important and it's a real topic. It's a real thing that happens. And so you know, when I hear people try to say, oh, that's just a Q and on thing or that's just a conservative thing, it's just like no dude. I've worked with nonprofits in the human trafficking space that were Democrat, liberal, and I worked on with human trafficking nonprofits that were, you know, that were conservative, republican, and I worked with nonprofits that were everywhere in between.

Speaker 2: 26:50

So it's just sad that how you know people try to weaponize. You know, and I would say that it deals. It's probably because I know Tim, you know he's, you know when, a lot of when he was making the film and even before he was making the film, like he met with Trump and you know his daughter met with Ivanka and there was this big initiative that was happening and you know there was so many people that you know hated Trump and you know there's Trump deranged syndrome and all of this stuff going on that you know they associated anything that he was for as bad or, as you know, you know, as I don't know, as you know, out of the norm, and it was really weaponized. I have no dog at a fight. I'm an independent free market capitalist, so I'm not Democrat or Republican, but it was just weird how it was.

Speaker 2: 27:45

It's been weaponized and I think because of Tim's relationship or past relationship with Trump and that administration, I think people are just like get rid of him, get rid of him, get rid of him and discredit the story and discredit, you know this, these events that happen as it relates to human trafficking, and that's really saddening. You know what I mean, because it and I've seen it with my own two eyes, so I know it happened, so you know and, like I said, I've gone overseas with Tim and oh, you are. So I know, like I know what happens. You know what I mean and it just sucks that you know people have just tried to discredit it because of the messenger or because of the messenger's relationship with a political party. You know, and that's one thing, and then you can go and then I hate to jump topics and we'll come back to this, but you know that was that's one of the underlying theme in my new book, amelian is the importance of political unity, because there is so much division in this country.

Speaker 2: 28:51

And it's political, it's from a gender standpoint, it's from a race standpoint, it's like, and I truly believe that a lot of division is not Not I want to say a lot, but a chunk of the division is instigated from our enemies outside of America, because they know that if they could divide us and keep us divided, that they can destroy us, right, and so that's an underlying theme within the book Amelia and it really comes to the forefront. And then at the end, you know, when it comes to the forefront, like I point to the top, I point to the fact that our division are Disliked for other groups, whether political or social or whatever the case may be. It's it's being driven from the top, because the top needs to keep us divided so that they can somewhat stay in power. Right, they need that 55 percent or that 45 percent. On that 52, 40 set, 48 percent In order to maintain power over their groups, and so it really saddens me that that is being weaponized, especially when I know how real this issue is. It's a hundred and thirty billion dollar plus industry globally, 30, 30 plus billion dollar industry here in the US, and it's a massive issue. You got kids in Africa. You know who are being trafficked and they're. You know they're. They're working in coal mines. They're working in mines and mining the minerals that we put on our electric cars, you know, and, and batteries and all of this stuff. And they're being forced to do it for no money and they're enslaved. And so for people to say, oh well, human trafficking isn't real, or what happens in what happened in that film Isn't real, it does happen. It's just like come on, man. And I also.

Speaker 2: 30:33

I think another issue with it too is the film wasn't expected to, wasn't supposed to be successful, right, and I think that you know Now that it has been successful, shareholders and and the people who hold the purse strings were really asking questions. Right, because the film was set up at Disney and Fox. And you know what set up at Fox first. Well, I know the history of the film. The film was independently financed. After it was financed and made, it was essentially sold to Fox for distribution. Fox got bought out by Disney Disney Sheldon and then years later the Angel Studios came in and bought the distribution rights, right, and so here's a film that wasn't supposed to succeed, and I think one of the reasons why it's being discredited is because there are people who are like their jobs might be on the line. So they have to say, oh well, because it was a Q&A, it's because of it's because you know this or that, or is it like it you know they're having to create.

Speaker 2: 31:39

In my opinion, I could be wrong, but I think in my opinion, one of the reasons why it's being discredited is because there are people who you know, on on, on on the side, that should have released it and made you know, I mean this closing in on a hundred million dollars in a fourteen point five million dollar budget. It might hit a hundred and fifty, hundred and thirty to a hundred fifty million dollars on a fourteen point five million budget. That's a nice profit. On the other hand, you have Indiana Jones. It's a three hundred million dollar profit movie. I'm three hundred million dollar budget of movie. That's not including prints and advertising. So you know I mean and now you're talking about maybe a four hundred and fifty million dollar film all together, I don't even think it's gonna cross, you know, two hundred and fifty three hundred million dollars and I looking at like a two hundred to a hundred fifty million dollar loss.

Speaker 2: 32:23

So here you have this one film that released at the same time. That's losing them, you know, close to two hundred million dollars. And they have another film that they had on their shelf, this that could have made them a hundred and Thirty five million dollars. So, so, so, so somebody has to make, has to, you know, try and save their job and say, oh, it's because of this, we didn't really, we really didn't release it for a noble reason, and these are the noble reasons. And but you know, at the end of the day, it's not show friends to show business, it's a business. And so you know, you know the investors and the people at the top, that they don't care about something, all they care about is green. Are they getting a return on their investment?

Speaker 1: 33:05

So I ask another reason why I think it's being chopped up the dough that's a great perspective, man, and I'll just say that you know, I think that those guys or girls should take ownership and they should get fired and there's a special place in hell for them. For you know, sitting here bashing you know a movement that is clearly out there and clearly happening and we could clearly make a difference, and you're gonna come in and bring your you know garbage to the table. So, listen, I think that, um, you know, I don't, I don't have an opinion on the pedophilia, really, because I don't know about it. I'm like you, I'm pro common sense. You know, it's like I'm not right, I'm not left. I just think that you know whether people are left, whether people are right. You can't be in this, this place of like, following one leader. That's not a. It doesn't matter if you're pro-biden, pro-trump, pro next person, pro next person, doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 33:53

It's like that's how, yeah, that's how these political Regimes are started and create these movements that cause massive harm and People just got to be careful, man. And you know, it's like I don't think people would ever tell you. Anyways, remy, if there was a pedophilia going on one year, a former Navy seal I think you'd kill him To you have an anti-sex trafficking movie out there, so I wouldn't. Yeah, they would tell you. But you know I was in Afghanistan. This is normal, like they had Chi boys, and Do you remember that? Yeah, did you go?

Speaker 2: 34:26

Yeah, I remember. I remember getting ready to go on a hop and and the intel that no, actually, let's back off for a second. I remember running a source, the intel from the source.

Speaker 1: 34:43

They don't, they don't go, and I might not know what a source is. What is a source?

Speaker 2: 34:46

Okay, so sources are in agency three letter agency world. They call it a asset in Policing in America they call informants. So since your source is somebody that helps go and helps go to acquire information For you, you know, being a big black dude I can't Blend in and you know Afghanistan or Iraq or you know killing the blank and you know and be a spy and Cognito. So I need to have sources, go and be my you know hands and feet essentially and collect information and go places and Do things for me. That's kind of that was another Reason, that was the other inspiration for chameleon, because I had to be these different people, had to be a chameleon. Well, one source of different chameleon with another source of different chameleon, with my OIC and in order to get jobs done. But I remember collecting intel on his HVT high value target and the intel from the source was that he had like two or three wives and his newest wife was like 12 years old and his other wife was like 14 years old and this guy was had to be in his early to mid 30s and and you know, so we went on, the op Wrapped up the guy during SSC and you know who was there, these little girls, you know and they were, these were girls that he was Say quote, quote, air quotes, married to and.

Speaker 2: 36:14

But I mean that's, that's child abuse in my opinion. You know, I mean, and you know that's not appropriate. You know, I don't think I don't, I know every culture is different, but I don't there's no way to justify that, you know. So, yeah, so you know, I mean, you touch one, the lightly, that's that that happens and it's like in some cases it's like I mean Can't kill him for that, I mean because he didn't have a gun and pull the gun on you. So you know, it was like it was a capture kill mission. So you wish, you wish you did, so you could take him out. But the reality is, you know he's doesn't work like that, you know.

Speaker 1: 36:50

So, yeah, man, man, yeah, it's crazy. You know, when I was over there I was only like 26 years old, so I didn't have kids, didn't really bother me as much back then because it was like whatever, this is just their culture. But now that I have kids it bothers me. Yeah, right, man, especially two girls. So that's what we'll move on, man. But guys, I'll put the link down there, check out the movie unexpected, go get the book chameleon, and then so let's talk about how did you transition from Actually that's because we haven't talked about this yet how did you get in the SEAL teams? Like, what was that process? Like, why did you want to be a SEAL?

Speaker 2: 37:24

Yeah, no, no, probably just drop the message in the chat. You could check that real quick. Just to give you heads up. Sorry, the Wow, I mean. Long story short. I was selling drugs, doing all kinds of crazy stuff in the Bronx, and End up getting involved in a deal with a drug dealer to win bad sold them some products that were supposed to last for a certain amount of time. Those products only lasted for a fraction of that time and my life was threatened, and my, my mom's life was indirectly threatened as well. That was a huge wake-up call for me. I made him back as money decided hey, I'm out of the game. If I keep doing this, I'm gonna end up dead on prison.

Speaker 2: 38:07

So fast forward six months later is when I made the decision to go join the Navy, ran into a Navy recruiter who believed in me, had two warrants after my arrest a warrant in New Jersey, a warrant in New York. She took me to both judges this was nine months after 9-11. Essentially, advocate on my behalf. I said yo, this kid's made mistakes, but he has potential. Both judges expunged my record, just had to pay court funds, court fees, whatever it was. And then she wouldn't step further, fudge the paperwork to sneak me into the Navy. That's how I got to the Navy and then, when I got the bootcamp of seal, came to our division played us a video of seals doing for seal stuff. You know I had seen the Rocky years earlier and that was what, what kind of put Navy seals on my radar. So you know one. He showed me that that kind of sealed the deal.

Speaker 2: 38:57

But I couldn't swim, didn't have the academic scores and I was super skinny, so I had to wait till I got to my first command to take the screening test. Got to my first command, trained for like six months really hard, and then Got, got, you know, took the screening test, passed at six months after checking in and then, with an year checking in the buds I was checking out and on my way to Naval Hospital and on my way to Buds, got the buds, made it through hell week, got to die phase, got performance drop because after I made it through hell we got a double roll for swims. And then I, you know, got to second phase as you know, the swim times drop from 85 minutes to 80 minutes to second phase Failed my first two swims in second phase. Failed the tread four times Went to a RB board and they were like yo, you know, we got to kick you out and a big, and it was all my fault because, you know, after I made it through hell week, in my mind it was like I had arrived.

Speaker 2: 39:51

It's like I had arrived. Nobody can't tell me nothing. I made it through the Bronx, I made it from Africa.

Speaker 2: 39:56

I'm like the only black dude in my class I'm about to be a seal. Nobody can't tell me anything. So instead of showing up to remediation I'm sure you know being a Buds instructor, you know you guys would show up on the weekends to work with guys who needed stuff to work on to ensure that guys can make it through. This is post hell week because you want to see guys make it through and I was too busy in a gas lamp district chasing girls and partying and drinking it when I I wasn't, I was, I wanted, I was waking up. By the time I woke up and some girls bed, you know, remediation was over, you know. So I thought I had arrived and so I needed to get kicked out.

Speaker 2: 40:32

Got kicked out but I guy was able to get a letter recommendation to come back. I Went to First Marine Division, did a year and a half there, did a deployment there and that year and a half came back, made it through Buds and graduated and got to the teams and I was at team three, did some time at they used to call it SA-1, but I think they changed it now to SRT-1. And yeah and did some motivated stuff and I had a blast, man, you know, was able to, you know, in my career do three pumps and you know, just have a good time and then it got out.

Speaker 2: 41:11

Sorry, I'm rushing through it for the sake of you. You know why? Because of the chat.

Speaker 1: 41:15

Yeah, we got, we got, we got four, we got four minutes everybody, so we got to rush through it.

Speaker 2: 41:18

So sorry about that, brother.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Now it's okay, one question, and then I want to transition to one more question, and then we'll, we'll finish.

Speaker 2: 41:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:25

So were you a corpsman then, because you were with the Marines.

Speaker 2: 41:28

Yeah, yeah, I was a corpsman, so I was a corpsman and then I was a humid guy so I went to. They called it ASO. Back in the day I heard that they've changed that name as well. I did TSO, narvator, a bunch of other stuff, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:42

So so did you go sock them? Did you sock them around?

Speaker 2: 41:46

No, that's no. Interestingly, I did not. I, right after I finished SQT, right right before I was about to finish SQT, I I was like I want to go to a team. You know I already got dropped and dive phase and first time I was in. But I just want to get to a team and get to work. I don't want to now go to another something. Well, it's for another six months.

Speaker 2: 42:09

So I get to my team team three, and my platoon chief and I'm like, yeah, and I was, I was over the corpsman stuff anyway, like I wanted. You know, I was like, yeah, I'll be a machine gunner as a new guy. I was up for anything but being a corpsman. And when I got there, my platoon chief looked at my record and he saw that you know, I was at 84, four, you know, combat medic with the Marines, and he was like you're going to be the platoon medic. I was like I didn't go to 18. He's like, oh, yeah, so they sent me to solve OEMS. I went to solve OEMS and I went to 18 Delta and I was still the platoon corpsman and a human guy. Yeah, I was just like I'm going to get away from this thing.

Speaker 1: 42:51

I was going to say I'm surprised they. So, guys, long story short, I know we're throwing a bunch of acronyms out there, but we're just talking about medical acronyms. There's different courses. So, technically, special operations community has a medical course that's super intense, like Grammy. That course is crazy. Did you go through what doctors go through in two years? We did it in five weeks.

Speaker 2: 43:09

It's the same, it's intense yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:12

But I'm into that. So I know you got two minutes, so let's, let's just go out. I wanted to get into how did you get into Hollywood, all that stuff. But we can set up another future podcast. Let's, let's get them directed to you. What's your Instagram? What's your website? You know where can they find your blog?

Speaker 2: 43:29

I can jump on that real quick. You know how I got, how, if you want me to and I can jump on that. You know it was. It was, you know I got out in 2016. I was.

Speaker 2: 43:41

I was in grad school when I was getting out, so it all worked out because I was going to go into business consulting full time. My brother-in-law is a YPO or, and so you know it stands for Young Presidents Organization. I'm sure you work with those guys a bunch and, and so he was getting me a bunch of consultant gigs. So I was getting my masters, because I didn't want to just rely on being a frog man, I wanted to have the education behind me as well. And so I was in and, you know, got out January I'm still in grad school in May and I get the phone call from this woman who worked with Michael Bay and she was like hey Bay is looking for a former seal, we'll work on Transformers. The last night and I was like easy day. You know what I mean. I was like easy day. I'm all I'm doing is writing papers. So so I, you know, the next day, I went up to set in LA. One day, turning in three weeks, three weeks turning into six months and then, you know, it was after that. I still finished my, my grad school, but it was.

Speaker 2: 44:34

It was after that that I was like, dude, I want to be in this business, I want to be a storyteller, like, I want to be able to use my background, my experiences to tell stories that will impact people.

Speaker 2: 44:44

And so, you know, I kept on getting consulting jobs on films and commercials and TV shows and then that kind of grew into me becoming learning screenwriting and teaching myself screenwriting and wrote my first screenplay, which my first screenplay was chameleon, which is now the you know now turned into a book. And then I wrote some other screenplays and then I wrote a screenplay I hired, actually, by Tim Ballet to adapt a one of his books into a limited series. That's what got me into the WGA and from there I just progressed and then taught myself directing and now I'm a writer director. So it was a progression of, you know, really taking the time to put into work and learn. You know, and I use being on set as an actor and as a consultant as my film school. That was my film school because I didn't want to go, you know, go to film school, so.

Speaker 2: 45:31

but yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1: 45:34

We're going to do another podcast in the future because I have so many questions off that you just randomly gave a referral to Michael Bay. You just self-teach yourself how to direct. I mean that's incredible.

Speaker 2: 45:45

Yeah, Thank you brother, Thank you man, Thank you bro. But, you know people can find me. I got a unique name, remi Adelaike, so same on Twitter, instagram, facebook, linkedin. It's all Remi Adelaike, and you can find my new book, chameleon, wherever books are sold. I don't know when this is coming out, but we're doing signed books if you pre-order between now and Tuesday at the Talk Shop Live link in my bio. And yeah, man, appreciate you. Thank you for having me, brandon, appreciate you, brother.

Speaker 1: 46:20

That's always. It's great to connect with you, man, and I'll make sure all the links are in the bio to where you know, in our bio or the description of the podcast. Okay, so, as always, guys, you know comment on this, subscribe to it, Share it, tag Remi, tag myself, and I appreciate you guys for listening. Cheers everybody, thank you.