RealTime

Ben Rinder, Son of Mike Rinder

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TRANSCRIPT:

1. MIKE RINDER’S BOOK

Me and Taryn are both grown adults, we’re married, we are successful in our careers, we are educated and we can think for ourselves. And the book is just about the furthest thing from the truth you could portray. And the reason why is because Mike just was never around. He never showed us love. He was distant. And he’s putting out a book to really probably cover up his own abuses of the family and friends and his wife, or our mother.

2. MIKE HAD NO COMPASSION

Mike has never had compassion for others, for family, for his children—my whole life that I, you know, remember him and have seen him. And this book is just another—it’s just the most recent, you know, attack on the family, on a religion and on our friends and our well-being just because that’s what he does. And it needs to stop. He’s got his own child now and he should go and prove to that child that he can be a good father.

3. BEN’S CANCER TREATMENT

Mike, my father, wasn’t there when I had my cancer battle for two years. He showed up two years after I was diagnosed with cancer and about ten months after it was published in the newspaper, which is where I believe he found out. And he came rushing to the Fort Harrison Hotel to see me while I was in a sauna recovering from my cancer battle which was multiple surgeries, skin grafts, very invasive radiation, and he showed up to pretend like he was there to see me and save me and, you know, be a father. And I was already done. And it was really just a face-saver for him. So it couldn’t be used against him, I think. But the truth is that that was my choice to not see him. He showed up with a camera crew in the middle of my recovery and it to me was very rude and it’s very unfriendly to have police come in and take you outside to ask you questions, why there’s someone demanding to see you. And so I made the choice on my own I’m not gonna see him. And I want nothing to do with him. And he cannot use my cancer battle to get sympathy for him and for his book and to get people to read it and to get viewership.

4. MIKE DOESN’T KNOW HIS SON

Mike does not know me at all. He doesn’t know what I do, what I like, what my interests are. He doesn’t know my wife. We’ve been married for 12 years. He has no idea. And, you know, he just—he knows nothing about me except possibly my hair color and my gender. He doesn’t even know my age. He got it wrong in the book.

5. MIKE’S BOOK IS FULL OF INACCURACIES

In the book, he put “facts” that are wrong. First of all he belittles everyone in our family and I know through my experience that our entire family is awesome. He gets dates wrong. He got my age wrong. He got when I moved to Florida wrong. He somehow seems to have no recollection of anything that actually happened or he didn’t put it in the book. And I think someone who puts as a sort of disclaimer in their book that they may have all their, you know, their facts wrong, to me is kind of an indication that probably their facts are wrong. If they have to start the book by saying that, you know.

6. MIKE’S “SOB LETTER” TO CHILDREN

And then at the beginning of the book to get people to buy it he puts his “sob letter” and how he loves his children and he rushed to save us and whatever. But that’s his fairy tale. It’s his own little fairy tale. I don’t like it. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. Yeah.