Transcript

Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr.

From Oprah · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 11,194 words · 177 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr.", an episode of Oprah published January 20, 2026 (1 h 2 min, about 11,194 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including The Science of Revenge, Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook Elementary, Dan Jwis, choose lovemovement.org.

What this episode is about

This discussion explores the theme of revenge as a common reaction stemming from deep-seated human insecurities and emotions like anger and hatred. Through personal anecdotes and audience interactions, the conversation delves into the complexities of revenge seeking, its lack of positive outcomes, and its relationship to broader societal violence.

Key takeaways

  • Burning clothes is one way to cleanse, but revenge rarely fits into a neat pile.
  • Violence is often a sequel to grievances; everyone has a backstory, but not all share it.
  • Feeling wronged can ignite a fire of revenge; understanding is the water that could douse it.
  • In the science of revenge, even the most personal grievances can spiral into societal violence.
  • Oprah’s audience reflects society—revenge isn't just personal; it's a collective addiction waiting to explode.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: The Science of Revenge
  2. – 20:00: The Science of Revenge
  3. – 30:00: The Science of Revenge
  4. – 50:00: Adam Lanza, choose lovemovement.org, Dan Jwis, Sandy Hook Elementary
  5. – 1:00:00: The Science of Revenge
  6. – 1:01:30: James W. "Bill" Bailey, Jr, The Science of Revenge

Notable quotes from "Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr."

  • Actually I thought all of the answers were appropriate. Did you see the book before? It's the science of revenge. Revenge. He says you say it's revenge.
    about The Science of Revenge · at
  • But it was amazing. And yes, I forgave Adam Lanza. He was the former student of Sandy Hook who came back to the same elementary school that he attended and perpetrated the crime.
    about Adam Lanza · at
  • Would have to dedicate my life to being part of this solution and started a nonprofit called choose lovemovement.org.
    about choose lovemovement.org · at
  • James Kemel Jr.'s 's book is called The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction and How to Overcome It. It's available wherever books are. So, thank you all for.
    about James W. "Bill" Bailey, Jr · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Places & events

  • Sandy Hook Elementary — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Violence. Jesse was one of the 20 children killed during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. And Scarlet is here. Scarlet, I read you have forgiven the killer.

Full transcript with timestamps

Did you have a waiting to a tail moment? You put all these clothes in a pile and burn them.

I did. Oh, you did? I did. Yes. I took all the clothes I bought him. Listen to you grown up people in here. This young woman, you're applauding her burning up his clothes.

Perfect illustration of, you know, revenge seeking and and revenge addiction. You couldn't control it. Uh, now let's hear what were the negative consequences for you?

None. None. Okay. So, being on the Being on the Oprah podcast, welcome to the Oprah podcast. We're in New York City

with uh with an audience of our listeners and I so appreciate all of you and all of you who tell me that you're getting information, enlightenment from our podcasts, that it's uh comforting to you. You get a lot of ahas. I'm so happy you're going to have a lot of ahas today because the truth is we are living in a complicated and complex time and it is my hope to continue using my life in such a way that we can create conversations that can help you kind of take the lens and zoom out to see the bigger picture of a lot of subjects and zoom in to understand what's really underneath so many of the challenges that we all are facing as humans together here on the planet. And one of the things about the human condition that has always troubled me and I know many of you here and who are listening and watching us too is the senseless violence from domestic violence to school shoot the school shootings.

Remember when Coline just shocked us and now nobody's shocked anymore to riots and all the way up to war. So, my guest today says, "At the root of almost all violence is one universal human condition." I want to know those of you who don't know what the show's about today, what do you think that condition is?

Insecurities. Insecurities, fear, definitely. I would also say anger. Anger. Mhm.

Hatred. Hatred. Okay. Yes. I would say vengefulness or revenge. You win. Uh, actually I thought all of the answers were appropriate. Did you see the book before? It's the science of revenge. Revenge. He says you say it's revenge.

It is revenge. But every person here was right. Because revenge is always triggered by a grievance, a perception of being wronged or mistreated. And in all of those instances, we're talking about grievances. the grievances flow one direction and that is to create this motivation and desire to retaliate and hurt the people who hurt you.

So this is James Kimmel Jr. is a revenge and violence researcher and lecturer at the psychiatry department at the Yale School of Medicine. Thank you for coming all the way from Yale today to be with us. And his book is called I didn't know until I read it. Actually, I read an article that you wrote and then that prompted me to get the book and ask the producers about let's doing this show on the science of revenge because it never occurred to me that there was a science of revenge, understanding the world's deadliest addiction and how to overcome it. And I want to say quickly that when we posted about this particular topic on the Oprah podcast Instagram page, we received nearly 10 times the response we normally do. So there's a lot of people holding revenge out there and I'd like to start with your personal story. Tell us how you came to be a scientist of this to study this the incident that you

experienced as a teenager. So, when I was a a young boy, about 12 years old, um my folks moved my brother and I from a suburban home, small suburban home onto my great-grandfather's farm in central Pennsylvania, which at the time was just the most fantastic thing that could ever happen to me as a 12-year-old boy to be on a farm. But when I got there, one of the things that I um first set out to do was to befriend and um learn about and hang out with the other kids on the surrounding farms that were at great distances from from our farm.

And so I reached out to them and I found pretty quickly that I wasn't welcomed into their community. And uh when they sort of rejected me, my response was to try even harder. The harder I tried, the more they pushed back. And the shunning moved on into bullying. And the bullying, uh, as it often starts, it started verbally at first, and then that moved on into a much more aggressive form of bullying as we got older. So from age 12 till now, I'm moving into age 16 or 17 even. And this is still going on. And it moved into kind of physical attacks in hallways, getting on and off the bus.

You feared them. I I feared them. This was just kind of something you uh had to solve for yourself or just, you know, shut up.

Did you tell your parents? Did you tell your parents? You know, I think a little bit, but there was just sort of a

Yeah, that's too bad. That's what happens. And so then what happened? Well, so late one night, my family are asleep and we were awakened to the sound of a gunshot and uh you know, jumped out of bed, raced outside to look and see what was happening outside our house. and I saw outside uh a pickup truck that had been owned by the one of the guys who was bullying me speeding away.

Okay. And we searched around the house, didn't see any damage, went back to bed. The next morning, one of my jobs was to uh wake up and go out and take care of all of our animals, the cows, the pigs, and also a sweet little beagle hunting dog that we owned named Paula. And when I went out to feed and water her, I found her lying dead in a pool of blood with a bullet hole in her head.

They had shot her. They shot her. They shot her. Yeah. So, my folks called the police. They, you know, they felt bad. Uh, they took a report. So, about 2 or 3 weeks later, I found myself home alone at night and I heard a vehicle come to a stop in front of our house again. So, as I was getting up to look outside and see what was going on, I saw this pickup truck, the same one, and then there was a flash and an explosion. And uh the to the pickup truck took off down the road again, and our mailbox had blown up. And with that explosion went the rest of my self-control. After all of these years, I ran and I grabbed a loaded revolver from my dad's nightstand and I tore off after these guys. I jumped in my mother's car and I'm flying down the road in the middle of the night just shouting in rage at the top of my lungs to try and catch up with them.

How old are you? I'm about 16 or 17. Okay. So, I do catch up with them and I corner them by a barn. And so, the scene is their pickup truck is sort of pointed into their barn wall. My vehicle's behind theirs. I have my brake beams on and I see three or four heads in the window of the pickup truck. backs of heads and they slowly start to get out and they're turning around and they're squinting through my headlights to see who had just come flying down their one lane country road. Uh, and what was clear to me in that moment was that they were unarmed. None of them had a weapon in their hands.

Maybe they had weapons in the truck, but not in their hands. The other thing that was clear to me is they couldn't have known that I was armed, and they wouldn't have necessarily known who I was. They might have recognized my mother's car, but there's no way for me to know. So, I knew at that moment I had the complete element of surprise. And it would be a pretty safe and fast path to doing what I wanted to do.

And what did you want? Finally, shoot them all. Shoot them all, which was finally to balance the scales. Yeah.

On, you know, 5 years of abuse and the murder of my dog and our mailbox and all the humiliation. So I opened the door and I grabbed that gun from the passenger seat and I, you know, put my leg through the door and I started getting out. And at the last second, I had this very brief insight that if I went through with what I wanted to do, the guy who drove down that road that night would not be the same guy who drove back. It would be an irreparable and life-changing moment for me.

That's just a split second. It was a split second that I almost like saw into my future for just a second.

And there wasn't a lot of debate. There wasn't a lot of insight. It was just that will be you will have to know yourself as a murderer if you survive. if you survive. And that was just enough at that last second to cause me to pull my leg back inside the car and put the gun down because I had known at that at that moment I was I wanted revenge badly, but I just wasn't willing to pay that high of a price to get it

for the revenge. For the revenge. But did they at least see you with the gun? Good question.

Did they know? I don't think so. I didn't brish it. Did they know little James Kimmel was packing? I mean, so did they did they continue to harass you after that?

So, or did the harassment change in your mind? No. I um in a pretty amazing way. The abuse stopped that night. Maybe because they recognized that as potentially my mother's car. Maybe they thought my mother had chased them down the road. Maybe they realized that they had pushed things so far that they themselves were within 2 seconds like I was of of of changing their lives. Um, but it stopped. There was no exchange of words and I and I know I didn't forgive them either.

You didn't forgive them. I did not forgive them. I drove home wanting revenge even more but just going but not at that price.

But not the price. And then you ended up becoming a lawyer and you described lawyers as as selling revenge to the masses.

Yeah. Isn't that good, y'all? I know y'all y'all are my people. I know you'd love that. You are selling revenge to the masses. I just I love the cander of that, the honesty of that. It

It is true. I mean, we sell legalized form of revenge. And I was selling revenge, legalized revenge, which we sell under the brand name Justice just the way that doctors, you know, are selling opioids under the, you know, the name Oxycontton, then that's okay. But if you sold it in the under the name heroin, you could not do that. That would be illegal. Um and so lawyers are kind of engaged in a similar addictive process and it's highly lucrative. Right? So we sell this

selling revenge to the masses to the masses and we make the legal profession. I'm talking about we make a lot of money in that exchange.

Okay. So this is what you write in the introduction to the book. You say revenge is the author of tragedy and the destroyer of peace and happiness. It is the root motivation behind most forms of human aggression and violence, including intimate partner violence, youth violence and bullying, street and gang violence, mass shootings, riots, police brutality, arson, violent extremism, terrorism, genocide, and war. Revenge destroys individuals families romantic relationships fortunes communities nations, and empires. And yet, we want revenge when we've been physically or emotionally harmed. So why is it that we want to hurt the people who hurt us?

That's a brain thing, right? That is a brain thing. It's an evolutionary thing actually is where it starts. But that is resident in your brain. I mean, primarily it's human beings that have this intense desire to hurt the people who hurt us or their proxies. It turns out that revenge seeeking is not only focused on the targeted person who wronged you. You may target someone else that's a much easier to get people revenge and that's what they do.

That's what they end up doing. you write that your intention over the course of this book that you've written uh the science of revenge is to convince us that compulsive revenge seeeking is an addiction and a brain disease and that it matters. Now I read I read the book and I'm like is it an addiction or is it just you you become obsessed with it? I mean why do you think it's a disease because it is it it meets all the criteria of addiction. the neuroscience. So for the last 20 years neuroscience

because your brain looks the same way. A brain on revenge seeking revenge is the same as a brain on drugs.

It look in brain scans, your brain on revenge actually looks like your brain on drugs. So a grievance, as I said at the beginning, is the activating switch. It is the cue. It is the triggering event. When you feel wronged, you experience deep psychological pain inside your brain. And that activates the brain's pain network, the anterior insula. Yeah.

So deeper, deeper, it activates that pain network. And your brain doesn't like pain. And it wants pleasure to rebalance itself and cover up that pain. That's why the woman who said anger or rage or that is also true that something is ignited in there with the rage and the anger and the fear and it changes your brain. It activates inside your brain the pain network. And the brain wants pleasure. And to get pleasure, it activates the pleasure and reward circuitry of addiction. The go circuitry. The very same part of your brain, the nucleus and dorsal striatam that activate for drug addicts when they feel anxiety or uh see a place where they've taken drugs and begin to start to want or crave the narcotic of their choice. So this happens with people who have been wronged and want revenge of their choice.

Yeah. And you say researchers haven't found a close relationship actually between serious mental illness and violence or mass murder. Everybody always wants to say the person is a monster. They did this because they were a monster because they were mentally ill. But research hasn't actually proven that to be true. The reason for that though is is the the question is is somewhat put wrongly. Do people who commit acts of violence have a mental uh a mental illness? Most of the time the research has shown that's not the case.

People with serious mental illnesses even are are not at a significantly higher risk of committing acts of violence than the rest of us. But the qu the the issue is is what do you define as a serious mental illness? And that definition is very narrowly written in the magic most important book for doctors in how to diagnose mental illnesses which is called the this thousandpage um diagnostic and statistical manual the DSM you're familiar with a lot of people are

and in the DSM serious mental illnesses are things like schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder severe depression those do not drive violence but what is missing from the DSM is the desire for revenge that It becomes compulsive and addictive. That is and addictive means

does a person then can't stop thinking about it. They just can't stop thinking about it. They are driven by anybody relate to what we're talking about here. Like you just can't think about it. So the science of revenues revenge you say about your research and I just want to make you all aware of this that Mr. Kimmel is saying we're not doing this to excuse or justify the crimes of mass murderers. We're doing it to understand how their real and imagined grievances are converted inside their brains and into the desire to kill large numbers of people so we can pre prevent such crimes in the future. So how do we then use this knowledge the science of revenge to prevent violence? So we use it by understanding that. So let me put this way. Almost 100% of people want revenge when they've been wronged. If you do a a study of a group of people and say, have you had any recent revenge desires?

Almost 100% will say yes. But when you ask the question, have you acted on those revenge desires? Only about 20% of the people say yes. And that 20% is an important number because that's about the same number of people who try uh alcohol or narcotics who become actually addicted to alcohol and narcotics. So 80% of people who try narcotics do not become addicts. They're able to control and it doesn't become a compulsive behavior for them and it doesn't ruin their lives. Only about 20% experience that. And that seems to be the case. It hasn't been fully studied yet for revenge, but that same number seems to be uh this the number of people who move on to an addictive state of revenge seeking. And let me explain what that means. It's very simple. Addiction uh can generally be thought of as a inability to resist a craving or desire

despite the negative consequences. And revenge just fits that to a T. Yeah. But you were able to do that. You were able to recognize in that moment with the gun the negative consequences and put the gun down. That's correct.

But somebody who has been obsessed with revenge may not recognize the consequences or is willing to pay the price for those

which is to accept the negative consequences. They think they're willing at in the moment.

So there's another part of your brain, the last part of your brain that's relevant to this whole thing is your prefrontal cortex right where you were pointing. That's the one that needs to be active and available to you to stop you from doing things that hurt yourself or other people. If that area isn't if it's been inhibited or hijacked as it is an addiction, then you actually have an addictive process. If it's working, you only have revenge desires. And as I said, we've all evolved to have them. That's perfectly normal. That's not the disease part. The disease part is when it becomes compulsive and you can't control it and it's hurting you or other people. When I first started reading your book, I was thinking, well, I'm not a person who holds revenges. I can't think of anybody I really would want to have revenge against. And then I read this story, the story of Billy who was keeping the dog. Okay.

Mhm. And the woman went away and she comes back and the dog. Will you share that story with our audience?

Yeah. That's a story that we use um to conduct research on um this uh non-justice system forgiveness process that I've developed at Yale and and it's a way that we teach people about revenge seeeking. So, it's the grievance story. And as I said, with revenge seeeking, it always starts with a real or imagined perception of having been mistreated, treated unjustly, or victimized. And in the Billy story, for instance, and in the book, I invite uh everyone that reads it to experience what our study participants did during our studies at Yale. You go through the story in which you own a dog. Imagine that you own a dog. You were called away for a weekend and you have to entrust the dog to someone and you entrust it to your neighbor and your neighbor says, "Great, I'll take care of it." You come back, the dog's missing and you go to your neighbor, Billy, and say, "Hey, you know, where's my dog?" And Billy says,

"I'm sorry that you know, he ran away while while um while you were gone, but I'll mad at Billy."

Yeah. Aren't you mad at Billy? Yeah. But do you want revenge against Billy in that moment?

No. Not yet. No. I'm asking them. I'm sorry. Okay, you're mad at Billy, right? You're like, and you're also mad at yourself because you would have thought, why did I leave that dog with Billy and I trusted Billy? So, you're upset with Billy, but you don't yet have revenge with Billy. Continue.

That's a great It's a great insight. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Winfrey. Okay. But he says, "But I'm willing to help you to to find your dog. Your dog your dog's name is Harley. So, you and Billy start looking around for Harley. Put up posters. Harley doesn't appear." Two weeks pass, but then you learn from Billy's friend.

Billy comes friend comes knocking on your door. The friend comes knocking on your door.

Yeah. He's just kind of like drunk or high and he knocks on your door and he says, "Hey, you know, can you get me a bait dog like you did for Billy?"

And you're like, "What do you mean a bait dog? What is that? And why would I get you one?" And this guy, Shawn is his name, reveals that Billy and Shawn are part of a dog fighting ring.

Oh god. And that they use weak, scrawny dogs like your dog, unfortunately, Harley, to train this massive killer dog king how to become a very dominant and lethal dog fighter. And they did that with Harley, your dog, and King killed Harley. And they threw Harley in a dumpster. And

now, how you feeling about Billy? How are you feeling about him now? How are you feeling about Billy?

So now you go to Billy. So now, but now, how are you feeling about Billy? Billy's got to go.

Billy's got to go. Billy's got to go. All right. So you got your feelings about Billy. And now she goes to Billy again. Now she goes to Billy and confronts him and says, "Did you, you know, did you do this to Harley?" And he denies it at first. You you persist. You ask him again and again what happened.

She's making you matter. And we say she, but it's you. I mean, it's in in the story. You play the the role of this dog owner. Uh, and eventually he confesses. He says he did it.

He has no apology at all. He's happy about it. Uh, and he threatens you if you go to the cops. So, what do you do?

Still go to the cops. You go to the cops. You say you still go to the cops. And how does this help us acknowledge or um acknowledge our sense of revenge or our desire to have revenge? This story.

Yeah. So in the next step of the trial now, now that you this is a way to infect an entire group of people as we've done just here with the same shared grievance so that we're not all in our own heads with our own personal grievances. But now we have one grievance. We all know what it is and we all want revenge for it. But we all, you'll experience if we had had the time, we'd find that different people want different forms of revenge, different forms of punishment, different forms of justice. But some of us want the ultimate. Some of us want Billy torn to shreds. I've done this with a room of over a hundred psychiatrists over at the Javit Center in New York City during a convention and almost the entire room wanted Billy as a punishment to be put in uh a cage and torn to shreds by dogs. I mean, these are the people should have thought through it to make you feel it.

These are the people who are supposed to help you think through your issues. And they all want Billy in the cage torn to shreds. Really, that really surprised

because it's a natural it's an intense and natural emotion. Uh and then I would go through the steps of uh putting Billy on trial. So have developed and we've tested at Yale this non-justice system or miracle court approach. You can all try it on an app. It's a free app called the Miracle Court app available at miraclecort.com. And it now it allows you to put anyone on trial who's ever wronged you whether they're dead or alive. whether they're here or not.

And it's called the nonjustice the non-justice system, but it's the miracle court app.

Okay? And it's a roleplay trial in which uh you can put anyone on trial who's ever wronged you, but you play during this trial all the roles. So you testify as the victim, but then you also testify as the perpetrator, the defendant. You become the judge and jury defi uh deciding guilt or innocence and the punishment. And then in the last step, you're given the opportunity to become the judge of your own self and decide for yourself whether getting this form of justice, which you craved so badly, is making you feel better or worse and whether there might be a stronger response that could actually heal you.

And the good news of the research that uh has happened over the last 20 years that I talk about in the book is that just as we are hardwired to get revenge, we are also hardwired to heal ourselves through the process of forgiveness. When you even imagine forgiveness, you shut down that pain network rather than covering it up with a dopamine hit. And you reactivate your prefrontal cortex. forgiveness, it turns out, uh, is a wonder drug or a human superpower that we don't really even know almost anything about. And we've dismissed it and thought of it as something that's soft and something that is revictimizing. And none of this is true.

Forgiveness benefits you as the victim. It's the only powerful way to self-heal.

Okay, I I have been saying this for years that forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be any different. that I understand that forgiveness is the path forward, but I know a lot of people are still stuck in that forgiveness means I let you off the hook,

right? And that's why it's so hard to do cuz I don't want Billy left off the hook at this point. I I I don't I want him to suffer in some way. I don't want to put him in a cage and see him pull to shreds, but I feel like there should be karmic justice somehow. Okay, Anna is here. You can relate to this story. So what happened, Anna?

So my neighbor actually shot my dog. And for a whole week, we did not know what happened to the dog.

Oh my god, that looks like my dog Luke. It's a white golden. She was a great Pyrenees.

Oh my god. She was the nicest dog ever. She wandered onto his property cuz he was building a garage and she did not do anything. She sniffed the ground literally and he shot her

and we had this on a camera so we were able to see where it came from and it was horrible. We were very scared that he is going to come and shoot us.

Yeah. Next. and we have young kids and it was very stressful and we definitely had bad thoughts

towards him but we would never act on them. We wanted justice whatever that means. We pursued at least that he was you know shamed and known for what he has done to us.

But I hear you and your husband can't get over the desire for revenge. Yeah, I understand that. I would feel the same way about my dogs. We we loved the dog and it was so senseless, you know. He never apologized and I think that's a part of it. It seems like

But even if he apologized, what would that do? Maybe, you know, he would seem more human, like he understood that what he did was wrong, but we never got that sense.

That he even cared that he did it. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Just like the boys who shot his dog. Yes. They didn't care.

They didn't care. And so when you come to this point of forgiveness, is it that you must accept the fact that he didn't care? He shot the dog and he didn't care. You don't even need to come to that acceptance. What you need to do um with forgiveness, there are two types. There's a decisional forgiveness and there's emotional. That's the more involved and complex where you're trying to repair a relationship. So with decisional forgiveness, the easier one, it's something that you do internally to yourself. And when you do this, it, as I say, it shuts down the painful grievance that that you've held. It shuts the pain from it. It doesn't eliminate it. You're going to remember, but it when it shuts that down and it shuts down the the craving and reward circuitry, it begins to free you from the past. Now, I I think I understand from your your story, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you still live next to this person.

Yes. That is that is incredibly difficult, right? And I I would recommend moving as fast as I could. I mean, I had the fortune of moving, you know, when my dog was lost, I probably had to spend a year or two more and then I, you know, went off to college.

But being have to be have to live in pro close proximity to a person who's done something so heinous to you

is going to be a daily, you know, triggering event almost for you. Well, I think the point that you that you were making earlier and that you make over and over again in the science of revenge is that you forgive for yourself. But this idea of having to feel like you're letting that guy off the hook doesn't feel right, does it?

No. No, it doesn't. No. I mean, I think it was Can you let it go for yourself? Yes.

But you can do it for yourself. That's why you would do it. So I think that process of nonjustice

yes going through the trial in your own mind and playing every single part of the trial and what does that actually do to your

what that's doing for you when you go through that is it does a lot of things that are necessary for all forms of trauma recovery and PTSD so it gives you it gives you several things it gives you one is an opportunity to be heard one of the things that we want after we've been traumatized is we want to be heard we want to share our story and we to be validated that this terrible thing happened to me. And if you telling the story, too, you're telling to yourself,

you're telling it to yourself. And you might go, "Well, that seems so ineffective and um wasteful." But it's it's not. And here's here's why.

Because you are seeking justice for something that doesn't exist in this world. You don't need a courtroom that's built of stone and judges that aren't you and lawyers that aren't you. What you really need is to go inside your head where the pain lives and attack it at its root. And when you do that, and that's what we've been able to show in our studies, when you go inside of your head and you have this trial, it it would be really great if we could actually illustrate a trial. Yeah. People feel it. They feel that they're testifying in a court. And in truth, in the criminal and legal uh civil justice systems, trials rarely happen. I mean, a very small fraction of the total number of crimes that are committed and civil cases that are filed actually go to a trial. So, you're never getting that anyway. And hoping for that is is a is a fruitless hope. But here, we can actually give you the trial that

you want. And when you experience that, um, you do get to be heard, but you get more than to be heard. Then you get to hold to account. And holding to account is not the same as revenge. When you hold someone to account, you're identifying them as the person who did the wrong. And that's why I pointed out she's still living with the problem. And that's why I said I my strongest recommendation would be to move away as fast as I could from that situation if you possibly can to eliminate the pain unless you've gotten to a place of comfort where you can live side by side with this person who wronged you.

No, I mean, we built a fence which we were against. helpful, but we build the fence. So, at least we don't have to see him on a daily basis.

And I refuse to allow him to, you know, control my sense of comfort and my sense of safety

and move and and that is strong personality trait. A lot of people couldn't do that. Uh, and I just that's fantastic. I really that's a great

I respect your right to do that. Okay. So, we have more people in our audience who are struggling with their craving for revenge. Courtney,

I'm a flight attendant, so I travel a lot for work. Um, I was in a relationship for the past year and a half. We decided to move in together. In February, I was moving into his house.

I came home two weeks ago to an empty house. He told me he was spending a night at his brother's. And something inside of me just was it just it didn't feel right. So, I went to the laptop, his laptop, and I um looked through his email. I didn't see anything at first, but I discovered Uber receipts, and then I cross-cheed it with my schedule. Every time I was on a layover, every time I was on a girl trip, he was at this address. Thanks to Google, you can see who owns its public knowledge. And I saw that it was his ex-girlfriend um place.

Um so, yeah, the receipts Sister girl got all the receipts. You are ready. Okay. All right. You're qualified. We see you got the receipts.

So, I went over there. Within 15 minutes, he was coming out of her house. So, when we got to the house, he tried to lock me out. They got into a very heated argument. I decided to kind of just tear up the place because I was paying for everything for the last 6 months. He was unemployed. I was taking care of him. him. I was I was taking care of all the bills. I was just working so hard at a job that I don't necessarily love. And

what was Did you have a waiting to exhale moment? You put all his clothes in a pile and burn them?

I did. Oh, you did? I did. I did. I did. Yes. I took all the clothes I bought him.

I did. I listen to you grown up people in here. This young woman, you're applauding her burning up his clothes.

Yes. I had an incident like this in my 20s. I didn't burn them. I dropped them off at every bus stop in Baltimore. I went from burn one bus stop. So, I know this feeling.

That's what makes me feel so much better. Yeah. Yeah. I know this. I know this feeling. It It means you are out of control.

Yeah. I was out of control. The moment you get in the car and you go to look to see where he is, you should be checking yourself in somewhere. That's what I learned for myself. That's the moment you should be turning your own self in.

Yeah. Yeah. And I already knew that. And um so I did I tore the house up. I took everything. I bought him, his clothes, the

Didn't you put out posters, too? I did. I put out posters with his with his face on. I made posters. It said

this is a cheater. Okay. Okay. So, you burned up the clothes. You put posters out all over the community. You put posters out all over the community. And did you feel any better? While I was doing it, I felt exhilarated. I felt Especially when I got back into his building and I was like right by his door and I was like and I ran away and I was like in a little ninja blacked out outfit. Yeah. It was exhilarating. It's it's an addiction. Yeah. Now looking back I don't feel great about my decisions but also like he destroyed my life and that's a little a little get back. And

what you want to say to that doctor? Perfect illustration of, you know, revenge seeeking and and revenge addiction. You couldn't control it. Uh, now let's hear what were the negative consequences for you of doing all of that?

None. None. Okay. So, even on the Oprah podcast I Yeah, that's very good. I mean, no, I um I went to the doctor. I'm on anxiety medicine now. I have uh just riddled with anxiety just uh ruminating and how my life got here and um

and he's still living rentree in your head right? Yes. And he and like Oh, James called it.

He's broke, unemployed, and awful. Thank goodness. Yeah. And you will you're you're still very young. I've been where you are,

holding on to the bumper of a Datson Z. Okay, I know it's embarrassing. And holding on to the bumper of a Dodson Z, dropping off the clothes at every different bus stop in Baltimore. And then you realize, and then one day in my 40s, I was in the closet crying for that woman.

Wow. Crying for the woman who was so sad and pathetic that you thought you needed that person to make your life full. Yeah. So that that is my prayer for you. That you get to the point where you are not crying over him, but that you shed happy tears that you've evolved into the woman that you know you deserve to be and that you have somebody who loves you the way you deserve to be loved and that you are the master of your own fate and the captain of your own soul and you're not depending on somebody else to give that to you. Yes,

that's what this is here to show you. This isn't even about him. This isn't even about him. This is all all about where you are in this moment. But you're going to get there. You will get there. You will get there. You will get there.

So, and the question is, can we get you there faster? And one of the ways of doing that, uh, one of the most powerful and direct ways is to forgive it as fast as you can because to forgive it is to move him out of living inside your head and to leave him in the past and in the dust. And so the question is is can we speed that process along and make it easier for people? And when you go through all of the the five steps of this process, you get that result. You get to experience what I call methadone for a revenge addict, which is you get to really imagine and experience what it's like to do the things you really want to do to him and punish those and then go, is that even that kicking him out of my head? Is that making me feel better? And the truth is, you you would find if we went through this process, it isn't. And you would end up 20, what did you say? 40 years later.

Yeah. Still not 40 years. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, 20, 40, 68. I didn't go to 80.

Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. In my 40s. Yes. Yeah. In your 40s. In my 40s, I came to

But he was still there. You hadn't You hadn't completed the process. I I'd let him go. But what I I read across all the letters I'd written to him and didn't send to him. And so I realized, oh, that was never even about him. That was about where I was. It wasn't about him. It was about me.

That's right. So, James writes about a man named Leonard who was suffering from revenge but was able to hit the stop button. What happened, Leonard?

My parents moved up from Georgia to New Haven, Connecticut to escape um the South. They were sharecroers, but they said when the youngest child graduates, they were going to move back. So, um I was 17 years old, made plans to move back to Georgia. And um my oldest sister was dating a man and she said, you know, get your stuff right if you're coming with us. he wasn't taking those steps and he knew that she was going to leave him. So he went to her job. He was high and harmed my sister. And so um it snowed that day. So I went to pick up my mother from work. So when we got back to my house, uh the police were there. They said, "Get to the hospital." And so um walked into Yale New Haven Hospital. The surgeon comes out and he says, "Your sister was stabbed 20 times."

Wow. So um I don't know if she's going to live or die, but I got to get back in there. and turned around and walked away. You know, I was a good kid. I was in the church and everything, but at that moment me and my cousins went to the street looking for the guy. Um, and then ultimately I went back and a police officer, not even then he went to the hospital. He says, "Lon," I said, "Yes, sir." And he said, "Your sister's going to live. She has a punctured lung." And I said, so he said, "Where's the gun?" So I just put my head down and he said, "Did you use it?" I said, "No, sir." He said, "Did you use?" I said, "No, sir."

He said, "Put on the wheel well of my car up in the garage and walk away." And so I did that. He says, "Uh, you're a good kid. Don't trade places with him." So, unbeknownst to me, um, after he stabbed my sister, he cut his wrist and laid down next to her. So, he was up in the hospital anyway, under police guard, but no one told us anything. And so, I risked a lot that day, you know, looking for him, trying to harm people, trying to kill him, and he was already in the hospital. But when the police officer said that your sister had lived though, didn't that change something in your head?

It did. Not only that, um that that cop was great. He says, "If you're so protective of your family, be protective of your mother right now and go comfort your mother." Um number one. And but the big thing he said that day was, "Do you have to kill him today?"

Wow. Can you wait? And so that gave me a time to deescalate, you know, to calm down and then to comfort my mother. So, um, so that's something that I took and something I learned and that I use today, you know, in the work that I do.

Really, what is the work that you do? At that time, I did go to college. I worked in the prison. I became chief probation officer, retired after 25 years. And my specialties are working with violent offenders and youthful offenders. And so, I'm a football coach. I'm a foster dad. And um I started a nonprofit in 2018 working with violent offenders and um working with youth ages 13 to 24 shooters, so-called gang members and also victims of community violence also. So um we have the nonprofit going in New Haven, Connecticut today

and have you used that line that the police officer used with you? Do you have to do it today?

Absolutely. We respond to the hospital after community violence when you know a lot of times you know we go to the hospital the family's down there the friends are down there everyone's emotional and they want to get back and then that coupled with substance abuse you know when you know height you know emotions are heightened and that's I always use that you know I'm going to get them I'm going to get them and I said listen do you have to do it today can you calm down can you talk to your friends can you go comfort mom you know the children, you know, the mother, you know, can you talk to them, you know, right now? Comfort them right now. It's not about you. Can you comfort them, but just give it a little bit of time? And usually that's how we cut down on a lot of response.

Wow. You have to do it today. In the book, The Science of Revenge, James writes about Thank you so much for sharing that story, Leonard. Wow. In the book, James writes about Scarlet, a mother who lost her precious six-year-old son, Jesse, to gun violence. Jesse was one of the 20 children killed during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. And Scarlet is here. Scarlet, I read you have forgiven the killer.

I have. What was that process for you? Well, actually, I was introduced to James by Dan Jwis, who is one of the lead investigators of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Um,

hi Dan. But it was amazing. And uh, and yes, I forgave Adam Lanza. He was the former student of Sandy Hook who came back to the same elementary school that he attended and perpetrated the crime. There were several reasons. I mean, I have a strong faith and I grew up understanding that you forgive so you're forgiven. So, right off the bat, I was thinking about it. But, you know, I was a single mom. I was the only single mom out of all the parents. And I had a 12-year-old son, Jesse's older brother. So, I knew that I was modeling for him how to move through this, and I wanted to do it with strength and grace.

You were able to forgive immediately. I knew that somebody that could do something so heinous must have been in a tremendous amount of pain. Uh they uh actually the town brought one of the trauma specialists brought a mom who had experienced uh losing her son to violence 20 years prior and uh at the time I thought I was going to die. It was a few days after and I was in so much pain that I remember looking at my arm thinking I can't believe there's blood running through it. I just feel like I'm going to vanish. And so I was really interested in this woman that they brought in. She came into the room and I remember thinking, she's 20 years out. I'm going to live. And that was where I started. And then she started telling me about her life over those 20 years. And it wasn't it was filled with revenge, anger, hatred towards the person that had caused the harm. And I thought actually I said within about

five minutes I put my hand up and I said thank you so much for coming in and letting me know that I'm going to live. I appreciate it but in my mind I thought that is not going to be my life. I want to go on to have joy. And I realized no one's going to bring in a road map for me

and say, "Oh, you want joy?" Then you have to make a left at gratitude and a right at forgiveness. You know that it was going to be my choices from that moment forward that would determine my future and I could have any future that I wanted and I wanted joy. So, I just started choosing and forgiveness was the most powerful choice that I made in that moment towards my own personal healing and setting an example for my son.

Wow. Unbelievable. You're walking the walk. You're walking. You're walking the walk. You believe James' work is the breakthrough that we've been waiting for. How so? I absolutely do because I've dedicated my life. Now, uh, you know, when when your six-year-old son, you find out afterwards, has saved nine of his classmates lives before losing his own. It It is a huge Tell her that, Dan. Is that is that what was part of your research?

That's what we found out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell tell us about that. That what what Jesse had done. Yes. So Jesse was in the first classroom that uh Adam Lanza went in, they were still at their seats. They were caught by surprise. And uh from the information we have that uh before Jesse was shot. He was able to tell his classmates to run. And nine of his classmates were able to run out of the classroom before they were shot. two ended up hiding in a bathroom and unfortunately we lost uh five of them and there are two teachers in that classroom.

Yeah. And it sounds like Scarlet had a conversation with Jesse about that earlier that that probably led up to that.

What was that conversation? Well, they had had an active shooter drill three weeks before the tragedy

and uh you know being a parent that just uh you know I was had a full-time job and I just assumed that

when my child was at school that it was their responsibility and I remember one evening right before he was shot. He came into the dining room after we'd had dinner and I'm sitting with my mom having a glass of wine. He comes up behind me and he says, "Mom, what would I do if a school shooter came into the school?" And I mean, never thinking that it would ever happen to me, obviously, because those things don't happen to people like me. Uh, I remember sitting there swirling my glass, I looked over my shoulder and I said, "Run zigzag."

You know, I mean, like if I could do it over, I would drop to my knees and I would say, "Why are you asking that, you know, but I just was so nonchalant,

never thinking that, uh, that that would happen." So, uh, you know, you find something like that out about your son. I immediately quit my job realizing that I would have to dedicate my life to being part of this solution and started a nonprofit called choose lovemovement.org. We I I decided looking at the pathway to violence, which is what the Department of Homeland Security uses, and this isn't just for school shootings, it's for all violence. It usually almost always starts with a grievance, just like James said. But what I noticed was that everyone was focusing on the attack end. Just like we do major issues in our society, we focus on the problem. And what you focus on grows expands.

And so I decided there's a lot of people doing that. I'm going to take the road less traveled. I'm going to focus on the grievance end and I'm going to give kids the skills and tools they need to manage that grievance. But here's the interesting thing. I watch and read and study every single school shooting that comes along and a lot of times, including in Sandy Hook, we don't know what the grievance is. We can't identify the motive. And if you don't know why, how can you fix it? And Dan sent me this clip of James and it rocked my world because I thought, "Oh my god, James has solved it. Now we know why and now we can fix this."

Wow. That's right. Thank you so much, Scarlet. Belinda. Belinda is a pediatrician and she he's you're here with your husband, Ben. Hello. In your email, you said you're a recovering revenge addict.

Yes, I'm a recovering revenge addict. Hearing Scarlet's story should help you a little bit, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's story, actually. Yeah. Um I think growing up in a culture where you were told not to speak as a child and you were disciplined and you were shamed if you did wrong, but not praised when you did well. And then I was bullied all my life. Um, but I became like an overachiever to overcome that. But I scored a 60 on your quiz. So I think I have a lot of work to do.

Um, and I find when I get shamed or bullied or whatever or wrong that it starts here in the chest

and it goes like to my head and I have to kind of like breathe and whatever. uh take a hold of myself. Well, I'll take you back almost a year ago. My husband and I were celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary up in Lake George and I bent over to pick something up and I felt this like as if a fire hydrant opened up in my chest and shot in my head. And as a physician, I knew I was having a ruptured brain aneurysm at that moment. Wow. And so I t told Ben, "Please bring me to the emergency room." I started vomiting profusely. And I told him once we were 5 minutes away that I don't know how long I'm going to stay lucid. So you have to make sure they scan me. Tell them I'm having the worst headache of my life. Tell you cannot leave me in a corner somewhere because I don't know how much longer I have. And luckily they they got me into the CT scan. They transported me to my alma mater, Albany Med. I stayed there for

almost 3 weeks in the ICU, three brain surgeries later, and I'm a living miracle, honestly. But I attribute a lot of that to the fight or flight, the stress,

the the rage, the everything that is in my mind when I feel something's not going right

or somebody wronged me. Feel like somebody wronged you. Somebody wronged me. I mean, it's not only that, but it has a lot to do with that.

So, were you wrong as a child? Did something terrible happen to you? Nothing terrible. Just very, you know, being a firstborn Asian girl in a family, a I was basically a third parent,

but an invisible third parent, and there was a lot of a lot of pressure put on me. I do a lot of work with women uh that are from my culture and I see this a lot which is another reason I was going to ask is this is culturally related

because there's a lot of women that harbor this kind of rage and anger but it's pent up from years of you know strict discipline high standards and really just not being able to speak your mind I think

so you've been repressed all these years you've and repressed. Ben, you're shaking your head cuz you have to deal with that.

Yes. Yes. Uh yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just heartbreaking because I see the blood boil boiling up inside her. Uh sometimes it's directed at me.

Yeah. uh and most of the time deserved. But but whenever it is, whether it's her family or friends or anyone that may have wronged her, um I do think that I notice a big difference now post lifequake as we call it.

Yeah. Um you know, I I see her catching herself and and making the choices in those moments to not

to to steer left instead of right and and try to avoid that blood boiling. And I'm so proud of her for that because I think that she recognizes that that's about her health at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't want to see my family go through what they went through those past 3 weeks in the in the ICU with my sons, our sons at my side. And I just my health just means so much more than that boy.

But you realize you are a revenge addict. You realize you you see yourself in his book.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. much more in my 20s and my 30s, but now like especially after this life quake, I'm like, it's not worth it. It's just not worth it.

It's not worth it for any of us is what you're saying in the science of revenge.

No, it's it's not. Um, as I as as I say, we know from studies that revenge is the primary motivation for not only all forms of human violence, but also for all forms of nonviolent forms of revenge that that afflict us. you know, you're not a violent person, but you're seeking nonviolent revenge, right, on a regular. Or maybe you are, and and I didn't pick that up.

I try not to be. You try not to be, and that's that's good. Um, but but we do engage in other forms of revenge seeeking that are not violent and that are almost as destructive of families, communities, schools, workplaces, workplace sabotage. In schools we have you know uh teacher student and student student battles and and bullying that is almost as uh hurtful as physical violence are is the psychological harm that we inflict on each other and all of this is motivated. You have to go to why do you want to hurt other people? It's not the grievance when you know when we go to uh ask of the police what was the motive behind the shooting. Often the answer is we don't know yet. If there is an answer, what this the answer is the result of a search to identify the grievance. That's not the motive. People hate other people and people feel injured in all sorts of ways and most of them don't act violently. So clearly the

grievance isn't the motive. The motive is what the grievance does inside your brain to activate this desire to retaliate.

And that we don't have our police looking at. And quite correctly and we don't need them to. We know what the motive is in almost every violent act. When you see it on TV in the news tonight or tomorrow and you see an act of violence and you go and and you see the reporter go, "What was the motive? Do you have a motive yet?" You can just answer, scream back at the TV and go, "It's revenge." It's almost always revenge. The desire for revenge that's been activated by the grievance. If we focus on the desire for revenge and look at that as an addictive process, we can use all of the addiction strategies that we've developed for the last 20 or 30 years.

Grievance, it's not just the grievance. It's not the grievance at all. That's just the deactivating event. A lot of us have turns it on, right? We have there are as many grievances in the world as there are people times the number of things you can imagine are grievances, times the number of things that might be actual grievances and then times the number of seconds in a day. In other words, almost infinity.

Okay. Wow. So, it's not the grievance, it's the thing that activates. It's the one thing that grievances activate, which is it that is what activates the brain biological revenge, what I'll call the revenge circuitry, which just happens to be the addiction circuitry. And when we know that some people and not all people,

that's correct. It's some people and not all people. All people almost all people want revenge. Only about 20%ish as I was saying are people who can't control the urge and end up seeking revenge in ways that harm themselves or other people. That's when it becomes a disease. Revenge seeeking itself not a disease. Everybody wants revenge. It's like think of it this way. Everybody gets high on opioids and everybody can get intoxicated from alcohol. That's 100%. But only a small percentage of people become alcoholics or drug addicts.

Yeah. Yeah. But if if you're looking in your lives for a m a living miracle, it's sitting right here. It's right in front of you.

Scarlet sitting right here, Scarlet. That's a miracle. I don't know how you did that, Scarlet. And here, I mean, we're seeing the power of forgiveness to actually heal the most significant wound that any human being could experience.

Lyn, have you forgave the guy? He just said you were you were looking at a miracle. That's you. Did you forgive the guy?

It took some time. So I actually went to the jail to see him. Yeah. So I could get answers because they were talking around me and no one would give me answers. And my my family turned on me. They said, "You got your answer. Don't forgive him. Don't feel sorry for I don't feel sorry. I want answers." And then um ultimately I went to college and came home and I saw him and um I cut him off on the sidewalk. I drove up on the sidewalk. I I got out of the car and I was just I didn't know what to do. I But I think if I could have talked to him, I would have been more prepared. But I didn't react. He He profusely apologized. He said, "I didn't mean to hurt you, your family. I'm sorry. I was high. I was feeling that loss that I was going to lose her." And then he was already punished. But he did occupy space in my head my entire undergrad in college. And um that's the part that you know that I didn't even forgive myself

for. you know, but um that you let him take up so much space in your head. I didn't let him take up so much space, but um I did read the book. We did do some work together and I do utilize um the practices of um you know the nonjustice approach. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you have given us sir a lot to think about here today. Really, there's much more fascinating ground covered in the book that we couldn't get to today. James Kemel Jr.'s 's book is called The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction and How to Overcome It. It's available wherever books are. So, thank thank you all for being so candid. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know this conversation has given you a new way of thinking about revenge. And thank you audience and listeners. Thank you for your valuable time. So, let's meet up again next week. Go well, everybody. Go well. Thank you.

You can subscribe to the Over Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks everybody.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr."?

Oprah Winfrey (Guest), James Kimmel Jr. (Guest), Scarlet (Guest), Leonard (Guest), Belinda (Guest).

What is "Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr." about?

This discussion explores the theme of revenge as a common reaction stemming from deep-seated human insecurities and emotions like anger and hatred. Through personal anecdotes and audience interactions, the conversation delves into the complexities of revenge seeking, its lack of positive outcomes, and its relationship to broader societal violence.

What is mentioned in this Oprah episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The Science of Revenge, Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook Elementary, Dan Jwis, choose lovemovement.org, James W. "Bill" Bailey, Jr. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr."?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 11,194 words in 177 timestamped sections.

More from Oprah

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.