“DESTROYED ME!” - Psychonaut on his Abuse, Epstein & Ayahuasca | Kendis Gibson • 371
Julian Dorey · 8 Jan 2026 · 2h 32m
Guest: Kendis Gibson · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
This conversation centers on Kendis Gibson, a longtime TV news anchor, discussing childhood sexual abuse by an older brother, the drowning death of a childhood friend shortly after their first kiss, and how those buried traumas contributed to years of undiagnosed depression, body dysmorphia, and a suicide attempt in 2018 while working overnight shifts at ABC News. Gibson describes surviving that attempt and later discovering psychedelics almost by accident during a mushroom trip in Belize, which he credits with shifting his mental state during the pandemic. He details subsequent experiences with a guided psilocybin journey addressing racial trauma, an unplanned MDMA session that surfaced repressed memories of the abuse and allowed him to describe forgiving his brother, and two ayahuasca ceremonies in the Peruvian Amazon with a shaman named Mario, one of which produced an intense experience involving a sense of his soul leaving his body and a message about self-love. The host, who underwent ayahuasca with the same shaman network, compares notes throughout. Earlier portions cover Gibson's early journalism career, his firsthand account of reporting from lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, and an extended conversation about unresolved questions surrounding the September 11th attacks, the Jeffrey Epstein case, and other public deaths the two view as suspiciously timed. Gibson also discusses his book documenting five of his psychedelic experiences and his hope that sharing his story helps others, particularly within Black communities where he says mental health struggles are often stigmatized.
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Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Childhood abuse disclosure
- Growing up in Belize and immigrating
- Early journalism career and internships
- Reporting live through 9/11
- Building 7 and 9/11 conspiracy theories
- Epstein files and suspicious deaths timing
- Meeting Epstein's former household staff
- Government cover-ups and Kennedy assassination parallels
- First accidental mushroom trip in Belize
- MDMA session surfacing childhood trauma
- 2018 suicide attempt at ABC News
- Ayahuasca ceremonies in the Peruvian Amazon
Said on this episode
Quoted from the auto-generated transcript, which mishears names and technical terms. podcite.com reports what a show said; it does not endorse or fact-check it.
“that night was the first night that my older brother uh, he just crawled down in to the lower bunk and pull down my uh, PJs and and abused me. And it would continue for I'd say 8 to nine more months”